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Things Fl^orth Knowing 

About Oneida 

County 



By 
W. W. CANFIEI>D 

AND 

J. E. CLARK 



THOMAS J. GRIFFITHS 

UTICA, NEW YORK 

1 909 



.05 C, a. 



COPYRIGHT 1909 By 
THOMAS J. GRIFFITHS. UTICA, N. Y. 



TRANSFERRED 

00fv;„'artr .. 



Contents 



Page. 

The Keystone County 9 

The Great Pass 9 

l[le\ations 11 

^ J.akes 12 

Streams 1 j 

Scener)' 13 

Geological Formation 14 

Early Designation 15 

Tryon County ' . . . . 16 

White's Town t6 

Date of Erection vy 

The Aborigines rg 

Age of Confederacy 20 

The Tribes 20 

I lome (^f the Oneidas 21 

Numbers 21 

Treatment of 22 

hjiglish Influence 23 

Kirkland's Influence 24 

Line of Property 26 

Second Treaty zy 

Power Broken 27 

Last Indian Lands 28 

Council Fire Fxtino-uished 28 



Page. 

The Oneida Stone 29 

History of Oneida Stone 30 

Inscription 34 

dlie Highway and the Forts 35 

The Carrying Place 35 

The Forts 36 

Date of Building- 37 

Uses of the Forts 38 

Confusion of Names 39 

Character of the Forts 39 

The Fort Bull Massacre 43 

Plan of Campaign 44 

Invasion from Canada 45 

The Attack 46 

Massacre and Repulse 47 

The Battle of Oriskany 49 

Its Great Importance 49 

Conditions 50 

The Forces 5 ^ 

Advance of St. Leger 52 

Patriot Farmers Aroused 53 

Herkimer's Advance 54 

The Ambush 54 

Sortie at Fort Stanwix 56 

Duration of Battle 57 

Losses 57 

Fffect 58 

Tlie Battle Monument 59 

Slorv of the VVaq- 60 



Page. 

The Fort Slanwix Flag 62 

First Displayed in Battle 63 

The Roads . ; 65 

Trails and Post Roads 65 

State Flighways 66 

Lotteries to Aid 67 

Improved Conditions (><S 

Canals, kailroads. Telegraphs 70 

Washington's I Mans 70 

First Canal 71 

Canal at Carrying IMace 72 

Erie Canal 73 

Navigation ( )pencd 74 

Opening J)escribcd 73 

Chenango Canal "jj 

Black River Canal yy 

Railroads and Opening 7(S 

Telegraph 71) 

Cticans Interested 80 

The Beginnings 83 

Whitestown, Settlement of 83 

Deerfield. Settlement of 85 

Rome. Settlement of 87 

\\'estmorcland. .Settlement of 88 

Kirkland, Settlement of OO 

Stenben, Settlement of 02 

New Hartford. Settlement of 93 

Bridgewater. Settlement of 93 

Paris, .Settlement of f) 1 



Page. 

Floyd, Settlement of 95 

Lee, Settlement of 9O 

Sangertield, Settlement of 97 

Utica, Settlement of 98 

Remsen, Settlement of lOO 

Verona, Settlement of loo 

Annsville, Settlement of 100 

Augusta, Settlement of loi 

Marcy, Settlement of 102 

Marshall, Settlement of 102 

Trenton, Settlement of 102 

Camden, Settlement of 103 

Vernon, Settlement of 104 

Boonville, Settlement of 104 

Florence, Settlement of 105 

Forestport, Settlement of 105 

Chronological Order 106 

The ( )pening of Industry 107 

First Cotton Mill in State 107 

First Power Loom 108 

The Burrstone 108 

New York Alills 109 

First Woolen Mill in State 109 

Mills at Several Places 110 

Iron, h^irst Use of ( )re '. 1 1 1 

Stove Manufacturing- 113 

Works at Rome 114 

Glass r 1 4 

First Cheese Factory 115 



Page. 

Mineral Waters 116 

Building of Education 118 

Jesuit Missions 118 

Samuel Kirkland 119 

Kirkland with Oneidas 121 

Early Schools 123 

Hamilton Academy 124 

Corner Stone of College 125 

Charter to College 126 

Town Schools 12C) 

Clinton Grammar School 127 

Dwight's Rural High School 127 

Classical School 127 

Clinton Liberal Institute 127 

Houghton Seminary 127 

Cottage Seminary 1 28 

Domestic Seminary 128 

WHiitestown Seminary 128 

.\ugusta Academy 129 

Hobart Hall 1 29 

Rome Academy 129 

Bridgewater Academy 129 

Bridgewater Female Seminar}- 129 

l^tica Free Academy 130 

Utica Female Academy 130 

The War of 1812 132 

The Civil War 134 

The Call for Troops 134 

Oneida County Regiments 135 



Page. 

Bounties 136 

The Draft 137 

The Spanish- American War 138 

Industrial Centers 140 

Facts Concerning Utica 141 

Manufactures 142 

Chief Products 143 

Diversified Industries 144 

Rome 145 

Water System 146 

Center for Copper Manufactures 146 

Canning and Other Industries 147 



THIS BOOK. 

THE claim is not set forth that this httle volume 
contains anything that is new concerning the 
history of Oneida County. 

There is a lamentable lack of knowledge among 
many of our people as to prominent historical facts 
connected with the settlement of this territory, it is 
all to be found in the voluminous histories that have 
been published by painstaking writers in the past; but 
few readers have either time or patience to search out 
those principal landmarks in our story that will make 
them well informed concerning our beginning as a 
community. 

Realizing this, the compilers of this work have here 
brought together the most important of those events. 
The sources from which this matter has been drawn 
include all of the histories heretofore pubhshed and a 
number of contemporary prints. 

It is hoped that this little book will not only serve to 
increase interest in Oneida County's history among 
both old and young of our present population, but that 
it will find its way to many who once had the privilege 
and honor of calling these fair cities and towns, or the 
beautiful hills and valleys that cluster in the center of 
this great Empire State, by that endearing word, 
"Home." 



THE KEYSTONE COUNTY. 

1.0WEST Pass in Appalachian Range — Elevations 
— Lakes and Streams — Beauty of Scenery and 
Fertility of Soil — Geological Formation — 
The Erection of the County — Area. 

THE County of Oneida is alike peculiar in location 
and physical features. The one feature is 
inseparably identified with the other, and the 
two throughout the history of the land seem to have 
wrought an ujvbuilding influence over the people 
inhabiting the region. 

.\s distinctive as is the location, as marked as are 
the physical considerations, so are traits of mind and 
strength of character which stand out in clear-cut relief 
as the student of history looks back over the road 
traveled by prc\ious races and other generations. 

TiTK Great Pass. — The Appalachian mountain 
system which extends through several States from 
Georgia in a northeasterly direction away toward the 
gulf of the St. Lawrence, is intercepted in this county 
by the lowest of its passes, and one so ample in its 
proportions, so gradual in its descent from the pro- 
nounced heights as to be at first difficult of recog-nition 



lo Oneida County 

under that designation, though its importance as a 
pass may be studied with lasting effect at the Oriskany 
bluff between Utica and Rome, where at the base of 
the hill in the space of a few hundred feet we find that 
five highways run through the pass side by side — the 
iVIohawk river, the four tracks of the Central-Hudson 
railroad, the Erie canal, the LItica & Mohawk Valley 
electric railroad, and the public highway. The Erie 
canal at this point is 430 feet above the mean sea level. 

Rome is a central point, west of which the land is 
flat and east of which the county is hilly. Traversed 
easterly and westerly at almost its center by this great 
pass, the county has running through it with the 
Constance of a river a stream of commerce of tre- 
mendous volume. From Rome to the eastern boundary 
of the county this stream naturally runs through the 
gentle though massive- walled valley of the Mohawk. 
The n(^rthern, eastern, and southern portions of the 
country are broken by smaller hills and valleys. The 
land west of Rome stretches away evenly and broadly 
toward Oneida lake, a body of water partly within the 
western boundary. Extending in all directions, vet 
with a gc^odly number radiating from a common center, 
are the smaller valleys of the county, several of which, 
like the 'main valley of the Mohawk, are of a dis- 
tinctive type. 

Most notable among these secondary courses, though 
not whollv in Oneida countv. is that of the West 



Outline History. II 

Canada creek, a part ot the county's eastern boundary. 
]^'or several miles this brackish stream Hows through a 
j^orgc the sides of which rise to a height of loo feet 
above the tumbhng waters. The Sauquoit and the 
( )riskan\ \alleys. whose waters are mingled with the 
Mohawk at York vi He and Oriskany respectively, 
extend southward from the Mohawk valley, bearing 
on their sloj)es a grateful land. 

l'j>i':\'A'n()N.s. — rile hills on the southern side of the 
valley rise to a maximum height of [,307 feet, while 
on the north side the greatest height is Bell hill. This 
is iiisected by the Oneida- Herkimer coimty line and is 
1,582 feet above the sea. The distance from hill to 
hill at this part of the valley is ten miles. From the 
summit of Steel's hill directly south of Utica to Smith's^ 
hill, the highest point in the Mohawk range just north 
of the city, the distance is nine miles. Westward from 
Utica the Mohawk valley ranges on either side are of 
ksser heights. 

On the .south side the\- are intercepted by tributary 
valleys, and on the north side sweep into table lands, 
or diminish toward the pass at Rome. 

The general lay of the land included within the lines 
of Oneida may be gleaned from the altitudes of familiar 
and prominent points. Myers hill in the town of 
Forestport is 1,765 feet above the sea; Starr hill in 
Steuben is r,8oo feet; the village of Trenton is 841 



12 Uiicida Counly 

feet: the villag-e of Hinckley is 1.168 feet; Paris Hill, 
.a beautiful tableland, is 1,542 feet; Crow hill in Kirk- 
land is 1.303 feet: the Oriskany battlefield monument 
is 540 feet; Rome is 430 feet; Oneida lake is 370 feet; 
the ]\IohaA\k ^•alle}' at the Oneida-Herkimer county 
line is 400 feet. The highest point in the county is 
Tassell hill in the town of Marshall near the junction 
-of that township with Bridgewater and Sang-erfield. 
It has an altitude of 1.985 feet. 

The city of Rome is built partly on the watershed 
separating the waters which flow to the ocean through 
the Hudson and those which flow to the ocean through 
the St. Lawrence. \\^3od creek and the Mohawk river, 
the former going to Oneida lake and to the St. 
Lawrence and the latter to the Hudson, are but a mile 
apart at Rome, a circumstance which will be referred 
to later in a manner commensurate with its importance. 
And it is at this point that we find the loAvest pass in 
the Appalachian system — 430 feet above the mean sea 
level. 

Lakes. — The lakes of the county are White lake, 
Long lake. Round lake. Big i^ond and a portion of 
Oneida lake. 

Stre.\A[S. — Raised b\' nature like a triumphant seat 
in New York's galax\- of counties. Oneida's springs, 
gushing from its hillsides, send their sparkling drops 
to the ocean in all directions — east, west, north and 



Otitliitc History. 13 

south, a fountain-head in fact as well as in metaphor. 
Fish creek, draining northern and western portions, 
reaches the Atlantic by Oneida lake, Oneida river, 
Oswego river, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence. 
The waters of the northeast drain into the Black river 
and eventually reach the St. Lawrence. The western 
side drains to Oneida lake. In the southeast and the 
southwest portions the waters through the Chenango, 
the Susquehanna and the L^nadilla rivers flow to 
Chesapeake bay. The great central part and a con- 
siderable portion of the far north and the south is 
drained by the Mohawk, which may be fairly said to 
rise in this county, and its waters flow to the sea 
thr(^ugh the Hudson. 

Thus sits Oneida in the center of the state, or like a 
keystone in a great arch of counties extending from 
New York bay to Lake Erie. 

Beauty of Scenery. — The scenery of Oneida 
county may justly be termed beautiful. The valley of 
the Afohawk is one of the most remarkable in the 
world. f(M- it is rich alike in soil and in topographic 
effect. It lies in the Empire State like the golden horn 
of plenty. The lesser valleys and the tablelands abound 
in views which excite admiration, while for generations 
the wonders of Trenton Falls ha^^e attracted tra\'elers 
from all parts of the continent to behold a remarkable 
work I if nature. This cleft in the Trenton limestone 



14 Oneida County 

is to scientists like the drawing of a curtain allowing a 
peep at a portion of the world's past. The series of 
falls which the water takes in its course through the 
gorge are among the finest to be found on the North 
American continent. Fish creek in the town of 
Annsville presents another gorge of pleasing aspect as 
the river in its course sinks deep into the earth's hard 
crust. 

In the southern part of the county the valleys are 
wide, and the slopes uniformly easy. In the north the 
hills and valleys are sharper, and the face of nature 
takes a more primitive cast. As a whole, the county 
is a great garden yielding a ready response to the varied 
touch of industry. Originally the face of the county 
was deep wooded, but now it may be said to alternate 
between woodland and field in happy proportion. 

Geological Formation. — The composition of the 
earth's crust within the confines of this county contains 
an exceptional variety of formations. There is found 
everything from the arch?ean, or primitive (the rocks 
in w^hich no traces of life have thus far been discov- 
ered), to the carboniferous (a formation characterized 
bv traces of the presence of ancient forms of life). 
This region therefore affords a wonderful field for th'.' 
stntly of geology. 

The portion of the county lying south of the Mohawk 
contains a great strata of iron ore, much of which has 



Outline Historv. 15 

"been quarried ami reduced to crude iron. Ore is also 
found in the northern section, but not in such generous 
quantities as in the southern, where the supply is said 
to be almost inexhaustible. Other minerals found are 
waterlime and gypsum, bog and magnetic ore, marl 
and peat. There are remarkable mineral springs in 
many places, and there is much tine building stone. 
Gold has been found in small quantities, as have oil 
and gas, and once the state legislature made an appro- 
priation looking toward the development of a salt 
spring which was reporte<l to exist in the vicinity of 
Oriskany. 

E.^RI.^ Designations. — Away back in 1638 — half a 
century after the first settlement at Albany, when the 
Dutch governed the territory within the present limits 
of New York and much mc)re adjacent to it and it was 
called New Netherlands — that portion lying west of 
Albany (then designated Fort Orange) was termed the 
l^nknown Land. 

The Dutch in 1674 surrendered the territory- to the 
English, who named it New York, and the colony was 
in 1683 divided by its legislature into twelve counties — 
New York, Albany. Dutchess, Kings, Queens, Orange, 
Ulster. Richmond, Suffolk. Westchester. Dukes and 
Cornwall. Then the state greatly exceeded its present 
bounds and some of the original twelve counties now 
lie in Massachusetts. New Hampshire and Yermont. 



l6 (hicida County 

So first we find Oneida count}- included in the designa- 
tion Terra Incognita, and later in the county of Albanv,, 
it having- been made a part of Albany when the tweh'e 
di^•isi()ns were erected. 

Tyron County. — Tyron county was formed in 
1722 from that portion of the county of Albany lying 
west of a north and south line running through the 
])resent count}' of Schoharie. T}-ron county then 
included all the western part of the state, a great forest 
])eopled b}' the Iroquois. But General Tyron, for 
whom it had been named, having become obnoxious b}- 
his cruelty to Americans during the Revolution, which 
soon came about, the name of the county was twelve 
years after its erection (1784) changed to Mont- 
gomer}'. The county was at the same time divided 
into five districts, one of which was German Flatts and 
included all the western part of the state. The county's 
western, southern and northern boundaries were at 
this time the western, southern and northern boundaries 
of the state. 

White's Town. — On March 7. 1788. German Flatts 
was divided and from it a new town was formed — 
White's Town, as it was then written. This was the 
first of the present towns of Oneida county to come 
into existence. White's Town was bounded easterly 
by a line running north and south from the northern to 
tlie southern boundaries of the state and crossing the 



Out line History. 17 

Mohawk rixer at a ford near a p<MiU which is iimw the 
foot of Genesee street in Utica. Westerly, snntherly 
and northerly the town was bnnnded onl}- by the limits 
of the state itself. Great indeed was the area of the 
original White's Town, and many counties ha\c been 
formed from its territory. 

Cl'ttixg up thk Couxties. — \\'e will now briefly 
trace the process b}- which the great area of Mont- 
gomery county was cut away by legislative enactment 
down to the formation of Oneida county : 

Montgomer}- was erected as Tyron in 1772 and 
changed to Montgomery in T784. In 1789 Ontario 
was formed from ^lontgomery. In 1791 Tioga, Otsego 
and Herkimer were formed from Montgomery, and the 
territory now comprising Oneida was then included in 
Herkimer. The formation of towns within the present 
territory o\ Oneida commenced in 1792 when W'hite's 
Town was di\'ided. making the towns of Westmore- 
land, Steuben. Paris. ^Fexico. Pern and \Miitestown. 

Date of Krkctiox. — The county of Oneida was 
erected March 15, 1798, on which date the state legis- 
lature diyided Herkimer and made Oneida and 
Chenango. Oneida was made wholly from Herkimer, 
and Chenango was formed from Herkimer and Tioga. 
P)nt Oneida then stretched away to Lake Ontario on 
the west and to Canada on the north. On .Marcli j8. 



1 8 Oneida County^ 

1805, Oneida was divided and Jefferson and Lewis 
were hewn out of its broad acres. 

Three centuries and six years had elapsed from the 
discovery of America to the formation of Oneida 
county : 2;^^ years since St. Augustine, the oldest city 
on the continent, had been settled; 178 years from the 
landing- of the Pilgrims at Plymouth; 184 years after 
the settlement of New York by the Dutch. 

The area of the county is 1,215 square miles and it 
is the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh county in the 
order of erection. 



THE ABORIGINES. 



Eauly Occupation by a Confederacy — The 
Oneidas — Title to Lands — Brant Favored the 
English — Kirkland Influenced the Oneidas — 
Indian Lands Surrendered — Treaties at Fort 
Stanwix — The ConfilDERacy Broken — One 
Remaining Monument — The Oneida Stone. 

IT is not intended in this brief volume to enter into 
an extended historical sketch of the aborig-inal 
inhabitants of the territory under consideration, but 
the ver}' fact that Oneida county draws its name from 
<.ne of the five tribes comprising the Iroquois Con- 
federacy, makes it necessary to briefly (Outline the ]>eriod 
<if Tridian occupation. 

No research will ever be able to unlock the door 
closed u{;K~>n the buried past of this portion of the state, 
and all we know of its history is gained from legend 
and stories told by the red men to hunters and trappers 
who penetrated the fastness of the virgin country. Il 
is known in a general way that even before the voyage 
of Columbus, a powerful Confederacy, more advanced 
in its system of government than were many of the 
•states of Europe at that time, held sway over all the 



20 Oneida County 

territory that swept from Ottawa to Lake Huron oit 
the north, and from the mouth of the Sorel to a point 
where the Ohio falls into the Mississippi on the west. 
They spoke of themselves to the early French as 
Ongwe-Honwe, men surpassing all others ; but the 
French gave to them the name Iroquois, or the people 
of the long house. 

Legendary. — The date of the formation of this 
Confederacy is not known, but a well-authenticated 
legend places the date upon a year in which occurred 
a total eclipse of the sun at the time of the "green corn 
festival." This would be in 145 1, or forty-one years 
before Columbus landed at San Salvador. Undoubted 
history presents these Iroquois as united and main- 
taining their political organization for more than three 
hundred years before the}^ were finally broken up b\- 
the onward march of a greater civilization. 

The Tribes. — The Iroquois Confederacy was 
originally composed of five tribes. The Mohawks kept 
the door of the long house on the east; the Oneidas 
and Onondagas guarded the center of the line from 
attack from either north or south ; the Cayugas and 
Senecas watched with equal A'alor and vigilance the' 
west. In T715 the Tuscaroras. a tribe that had been 
<h"ivcn (tut of the south after wars lasting several years, 
were adopted by the Iroquois and allotted a place near 
the countrA' of the Senecas. 



(Jiifliitc History. 2E 

i loMi-: OF Oneiuas. — 'Jlie Oneidas were known in 
(he Confederacy l)y the name O-na-vote-ga-o-nos — 
the people of the everlasting stone, or the granite 
people. As their particnlar territory they held a strip 
running up the Unatlilla ri\ er. thence through the 
gorge south of Tlion, u]) the West Canada creek and 
thence north to the mouth (^f the Oswegatchie at 
Ogdensburg. The western line of their allotment ran 
from the moutli of French creek at Clayton on the St. 
Lawrence, south to the outlet of Oneida lake, thence 
south over the western range of hills bordering the 
Stockbridge ^'alley. 

Of course it must not be thought for an instant that 
there existed in the Confederacy of the Iroquois any 
Taw by which the members of its tribes were confined 
to any particular territory, for they were free to wander 
tit w ill : but there was an unwritten and unspoken code 
through which each tribe was recognized as holding its 
particular territor}*. All of the land embraced in the 
present county of Oneida was within the domain of the 
"Oneida nation of Indians. 

Numbers. — It is not belie\'ed that the Iroquois ever 
numbered, after the \vhite men came to know them, 
more than 12.000 souls. The Oneidas were not so 
strong in numbers as the ATohawks or Senecas and 
were probablv more numerous by a few hundred than 
the Onondagas or Cayugas. They are supposed to have 



22 Oneida L'ouiily 

stood third in point of numbers. Their principal village 
was at Oneida Castle. Scattered settlements were to 
be found in the present towns of Kirkland. Verona, 
Westmoreland and Marshall ; but all were within easv 
distance of the main council fire. 

Unfairly Treated. — The histories of those people 
who came to the new' world show that prior to English 
occupation the Indians were dealt with most shame- 
fully. The Spaniards did not penetrate as far north 
as the territory of which we write, but the Hollanders 
and the French looked upon the Indians as savages 
whom it were no sin to deceive, or cheat, or mislead, 
or outrage, or slay. The English treated with the 
Iroquois as a nation, sovereign over its lands. Of 
course it would be presumptuous to say that Britain 
treated fairly with the Indians, as it acquired title to a 
vast domain for a very small return, but it is true that 
England based her claim to the territory of the Six 
Nations, not on discovery or conquest, but solely on 
such title as she got from these Indian tribes. By the 
treaty of Utrecht, France asserted its title to w^hatever 
lands lay north of the St. Lawrence river. When 
Britain accjuired Canada by conquest over the French, 
it did not restore that territory to the Six Nations, but 
the Indian rights over all of the soil south of the St. 
Lawrence and the lakes were recognized hx Britain iti 
a continuous line, and at the close of the Revolution 



Outline History. 23 

New York sticceeded l<> the title <>f Britain ancf its 
allies. 

Patents. — Recognizing this title, the English gov- 
ernment by treaties acquired numerous tracts fr(~»m the 
Iroquois as patents, and these in turn were bestowed 
upon favorites of the government and those who had 
rendered especial service. It was in this way that 
permanent English settlements made their appearance, 
and chief among these was the one at Johnstown, in 
which Sir William Johnson represented the crown. 

Kavorkd England. — It is not a matter tor surprise 
that when the Revolution came the larger part of the 
Iroquois were favorable to the side of the parent gov- 
ernment. One <^f the chief factors in bringing about 
this C(^ndition was a Mohawk half-breed. J(iseph Rrant 
— Thayendanegea. Possessed of more than ordinary 
gifts, he had enjoyed peculiar advantages for their 
cultivation. His sister Molly was the mistress oi Sir 
William Johnson, and Johnson had made it possible for 
Brant to secure a fair English education, and after- 
wards a position connected with the Indian agency 
which he held until the opening of the war. .\bout that 
time Rrant made a visit to England and was received 
with such marked attention by the nobilit\ that he 
became the avowed ally of the British governineiit. He 
was de.scended from a sachem of the Mohawks and had 
attainerl the high honor of a recognized chief of the 



24 Unci da County 

Confederacy. As a leader of his people he was exhaust- 
less in expedients, of tireless energy, dauntless courage, 
lofty and chivalrous bearing — a tower of strength to his 
friends and a terror to his foes. To a student of the 
history of his times, the name of Brant awakens recol- 
lections of slaughter, massacre, plunder, pillage, 
burning- and devastation for which men still justly 
execrate his name and stigmatize his memory. 

Kirkland's Influence. — But Brant had little 
influence with the Oneidas. In July, 1766. ten years 
before the Revolution, the Rev. Samuel Kirkland took 
up his residence with the Oneidas at Oneida Castle and 
established the first permanent Protestant mission ever 
located in Oneida county. It is impossible to estimate 
the fruits of the Rev. Mr. Kirkland's labors. He was 
born in Connecticut and possessed with his great piety 
an intense patriotism for his native country. Step by 
step he led the Oneidas into that condition of thought 
that urged upon them the justice of the cause for which 
the settlers were fighting. Great as was the Con- 
federacy of Avhich they were no inconsiderable part, 
strong as must have been their traditions and their love 
for those with whom they had been linked for centuries, 
Kirkland held the Oneidas back and the\- refused to 
engage in the war of the Revolution as allies of Britain. 
Had the}' joined with the other tribes, the struggle for 
libertv would have been the harder and might have 



Oiifliiic History. 25 

iitterlv failed. A little thing- might have turned the 
balance at the time when Burgoyne was sweeping down 
bv Lake Champlain and St. I.eger was advancing from 
Oswego to ravage the Mohawk Valley. 

Brant was aware of the inlUience Rev. Mr. Kirkland 
exerted with the Oneidas. and through his instigation 
and upon recommendation of Col. Guy Johnson (the 
successor of Sir William Johnson) the devoted mis- 
sioner was compelled to leave the Oneidas ; but they 
remembered his teachings and could not be swayed by 
Brant from their determination and promise to be 
neutral. The Oneidas took no part with the British 
in the war of the Revolution, and. indeed, there is not 
lacking evidence of the claim that they gaAc to tlie 
settlers of the Mohawk Valley timely warning of the 
intention of the British and Indians to push down the 
valley from Fort Stanwix and with fire and sword 
destro}- all. 

Tt is not recorded that within the territory of Oneida 
countv occurred an\- of those terrible Indian massacres 
that make up distressing" pages in the history- of other 
sections of the state. Fortunatelv it was not the lot of 
this county to have in its story a chapter as dark as that 
which belongs to Schenectady. Cherry A'^alley. New- 
town CElmira). or Oswego. The account of its battles, 
written in another chapter, contains enough of renown, 
and it is with relief that the student of our liistor\- finds 



26 Oneida County 

in the struggle for supremacy little that has at its 
foundation cruel massacre. 

The Line of Property. — In September, 1768, Sir 
William Johnson, accompanied by the governor of New 
Jersey, William Franklin, and a number of England's 
representatives, set out for Fort Stanwix with twenty 
boat-loads of goods. The Iroquois had been summoned 
to meet with him, but were slow in assembling, and it 
was not till October 24 that the council was opened. 
There were at that time about 2.000 Indians present. 
At this council the Indians ceded to the whites lands 
east of a line called "The Line of Property." This line 
began at the mouth of the Tennessee river: thence up 
the Ohio river to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg) : thence up the 
Allegheny river to Fort Kittaning-; thence nearly east 
over the Allegheny mountains to Bald Eagle creek : 
thence northeast to the east branch of the Susquehanna 
river ; thence northeast to the mouth of the east branch 
of the Delaware river ; thence up the west or Mohawk 
branch of the Delaware : thence up the L^nadilla river 
to its head : thence by a direct line to the east branch 
of Fish creek in Oneida count}' : thence north to the 
mouth of French creek, the present site of the village 
of ClaA'ton, on the St. Lawrence river. 

Just at the foot of College hill in the village of 
Clinton mav be seen a stone monument erected by the 
Hamilton College class of 1887 to mark this "Line of 
Property." 




THE LINE OF PROPERTY MONUMENT. 



Oiifliiic History. 27 

(' 

Second Trkatv. — After the Revolution, October 22. 
1784, another great ct)nncil was held at Fort Stanwix 
at which Arthur W'olcott, Richard l>utlcr and Arthur 
Lee, commissioners appointed by Cong-ress, treated 
with the Indians, except the Mohawks, wdio had fled 
to Canada. The Marquis de LaFayette was present at 
this treaty. The Indians at this time ceded to the 
whites all their lands 'Avest of a line from Lake 
Ontario four miles east of the Niagara river, to Buffalo 
creek ; thence south to Pennsylvania ; thence west to the 
end of Pennsylvania : thence sotith along the west 
bounds of that state to the Ohio river." 

Thus at Fort Stanwix the Tr(K[uois parted with the 
greater pcn-tion of their magnificent empire in these tw^o 
treaties — and the terms were certainly not creditable 
to the whites. The Indians still retained title to the 
interior of New York state from the eastern end of 
Oneida lake to a ])oint four miles east of the Niagara 
river. 

Powi:r Broken. — Tn 1779 an expedition was con- 
ducted by Gen. J(^hn Sulli\'an through the country of 
the Senecas, Ca}ugas ami Onondagas. It broke the 
])ower of the Ir()(|uois. for their crops and towms were 
burned and many of their {"ycojile were slain. The 
Oneidas w-ere not molested b\- this expedition. The 
Senecas. Cayugas, Onondagas and Tuscaroras then 
treated with the state and accepted the few reservations 
to which thev still hold title. 



28 Oiicida Coinifx 

Last Ixdian Lands. — -\t Fort Stanwix again, in 
1/88, the Oneidas, who had been so loyal to the 
colonists, for the beggarl}- pittance of $2,000 worth of 
clothing, $1,000 worth of provisions, and some help 
toward building a grist and saw mill at their village, 
ceded to the state nearly all their lands, making but few 
reservations. From that time up to 1846 the Oneidas 
continued to sell their lands piecemeal, but receiving 
more just compensation. With the money thus received 
they were enabled to purchase at Green Bay, Wis- 
consin, a reservation to which most of them removed 
and upon \\hich they reside at the present time. A few 
families remained near Oneida Castle and their 
descendants now live there and hold their lands in 
severalty. 

The Council Fire Extinguished. — Before dis- 
missing this subject it is proper to draw attention to 
two more historical incidents. On the 19th of January, 
1777, a delegation of Oneida Indians visited Fort 
Stanwix (then known as Fort Schuyler) and to the 
commanding officer in charge stated that the great 
coimcil fire of the Iroquois at Onondaga had been 
extinguished for all time, and that the Confederacy 
of the Six Nations was a thing of the past. Hence- 
forth the tribes must be treated with separately, for the 
first republic on .^merican soil had expired while the 
second greater and grander republic was in the doubt- 
ful struggles of its infancy. 



Outline History. 29 

. One Rk.maixixc, .Moxumkxt. — The Indians neither 
wrote historA- ntM- buildcd monuments. Their hteratnre 
consisted simplv of heautiftil legends which were 
handed down from one generation to another, and 
which were told so often by the elders of the tribes 
that thev were learned by the younger generation and 
then in turn comnuinicated by them to those who came 
after. I'\"w of these legends have 1)een preserved with 
an\- faithfulness as to accuracy until the [jresent day; 
but these and stMiic ])ieces of wampum or picture 
writing c»^niprise all the literatiu'e remaining of these 
])eo])le that was not written by their enemies. 

The Oxeid.v StoxI':. — In all the \ast territory over 
which the red men held swa}- there remains n(^t a 
vestige of a Iiabitation once occupied b\- them. They 
built no ])ermanent strtictures and they carried out 110 
abiding improvements. Thus it happens that within 
the county of Oneida there remains but one Indian 
montiment — the Sacred Stone of the Oneidas. 

MoxuMEXT l^iiESERVED. — Near the entrance to 
Forest Hill Cemetery. I'^tica, is a large field stone, 
which in ap])earance is n(^t unlike the white boulders 
so abundant in the .\dirondack region. It was placed 
there in the fall of 184Q by the trustees of the I'tica 
Cemetery .\ssociation. and it will probably remain in 
its ])resent location as long as time shall last. After 
the main b(^dv of the Oneidas had remo\-ed to Green 



30 Oneida Cuuiify 

Bay, Wisconsin (in 1846), the few members of the 
tribe remaining in this locahty reahzed that as a people 
possessing a distinct organization their days were num- 
bered, and they therefore made known a desire that the 
Sacred Stone of the Oneidas should be preserved. 
Se\eral trustees of the Cemetery Association visited 
St()ckl)ri(lge. Alathson count}", to inspect the stone, and 
in the autumn of 1849. Dr. M. M. Bagg and Julius A. 
Spencer drove to Stockbridge. accompanied by a heavy 
wagon dra^^'n by four horses, and the stone w^as 
brought to the cemetery. Several Indians returned 
with it and saw the stone deposited in the place it has 
since occupied. 

History of the Stone. — The cemetery was 
formallv opened and dedicated in the spring of 1850. 
and at that time AMlliam Tracy of Utica wrote the 
following history of the stone : 

"At a prominent position near the entrance of the 
cemeterv stands the palladium of the Oneidas, the 
sacred stone w'hich gave them their national name and 
which is said to have followed them in all their wan- 
derings. The legend is that the Oneidas. whose 
territorv extended from the countr}- of the Onondagas 
to tliat of the Mohawks, occupying all of Central New 
^'ork. were descended from two Onc^ndaga Indians 
who were brothers. At a \-ery remote ])eriod they left 
their native home and l)ui1t wigwams on the Oneida 



Outline History. 31 

river, at the outlet of Oneida lake, where, like the ante- 
diluvians, they 'builded a city" and 'begat sons and 
daughters.' At their resting place there appeared an 
oblong, roundish stone, unlike any of the rocks in the 
vicinit)' which came there to be their sacrificial altar 
and to gi\e a name to their children. 

"Onia, in their native tong^ue, is the word for a 
stone. .\s their descendants increased in number and 
became knowifas a communitw the}" were called after 
it Oniota-Aug. the people of the stone or who sprung 
from the stone. The particle Aug furnished the plural 
and left the singular form (^f the word Oniota, a man 
sprung from the stone — applical)le to an indi\idual. 
A mispronunciation has gi\en us the word Oneida. 
The stone was the altar upon which their sacrifices 
were made and around which their councils and festive 
and religious gatherings took place. After the lapse of 
sex'eral ages the Oniota-Aug, now become numerous, 
removed from the Oneida ri\er to the ]:)lace where the 
creek, which now bears their name, is discharged into 
the (Oneida lake, and the sacred stone, unassisted b)- 
human liands. followed ihem and located itself again 
in their midst. Here the}' flourished until the con- 
federati(Mi of the \'Wc Nations was formed, and the 
children of the stone became second in the order of 
precedence in the Confederacy. At length it was deter- 
mined bv the old men and warriors of the nation to 
remo\-e their council fire to the summit of one of the 



32 ()itcida CoitJtfy 

chain of hills which on the east skirt the vallev of the 
Oneida creek. The one chosen for the new seat of 
the tribe is in the town of Stockbridge, and about i8 
miles distant from its former residence. It commands 
a view of one of the most beautiful valleys in our own 
or indeed in any country, extending from the lake 
southward some thirty miles. 

"When the council of the nation had selected this 
new^ home for its people, the stone, true to its mission, 
a second time followed in the train of its children and 
seeking one of the most commanding and beautiful 
points of vision upon the hill, deposited itself in a beau- 
tiful l^utternut grove from beneath whose branches the 
eye could look out upon the whole distant landscape, 
the most lovelv portion of the national domain. Here 
it remained to witness the remainder of its people's 
history. It saw the Five Nations increase in power 
and importance until their name struck terror from 
the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of A'lexico, and from the 
Hudson to the Father of Waters. Around this unhewn 
altar, within its leafy temple, was gathered all the 
\\is(lom of the nation when measures affecting its 
welfare were to l^e considered. There eloquence as 
effecti\e and beautiful as e\er fell from (^reek or 
Roman ]\\) was ])oured forth in the ears of its sons and 
daughters. Logan, the white man's friend, was there 
trained to utter words tliat burned, and there Sconon- 
doa, the last orator of his race, the warrior chief, the 



Outline History. 33 

lowlv Christian convert, with matchless power, swayed 
the hearts of his conntrymen ; there the sacred rites 
were celebrated at the return of each harvest moon 
and each new year, when every son and daughter of 
the stone came up Hke the Jewish tribes of old to join 
in the national festivities. This was the resting- place 
of the stone when the tirst news came that the paleface, 
wiser than the red children of the (ireat Spirit, had 
come from be\(3nd the great water. It remained to see 
him. after lapse <>f many years, penetrate the forest 
and come among its children a stranger; to see him 
welcomed ])y them to a liome ; to see them shrink and 
wither before his lireath, until the white man's sons 
and daughters occupied their abodes and plowed the 
fields beneath whose forest covering the bones of their 
fathers were laid. At length the council fire of the 
Oneidas was extinguished. The stone no longer reeked 
with the blood of a sacrificed \ictim ; its people were 
scattered and there was no new resting place for then? 
to which it might betake itself and again become their 
altar. It was a stranger in the ancient luMne of its 
children, an exile ujion its own soil. 

"Many i:»ersons interested in the associations con- 
nected with this memorial of the aboriginal race 
desired that it might be remo\-ed to some position 
where it might be j'jreserved to future times. While 
the prejiaration of the cemetery gnmnds was in 
progress, it was ascertained that James H. Gregg, the 



34 Oneida County 

prDprietor of the farm upon which it was situated, 
actuated by a similar feehng. would consent to its 
removal to some place within them, where it would 
remain secure from the contingencies to which it might 
be exposed in a ])ri\'ate domain liable to constant 
change of owners. It was thereupon removed to its 
present position: long to remain a memorial of a 
people celebrated for their savage virtues and once 
not ol)scure actors in some of the stirring passages of 
our country's histor}-, but who have faded before the 
approad of the white man and the last drops of whose 
blood \\\\\ soon have mingled with the earth." 

Appropri.vtely Txscribed. — In the spring of 1902 
the cemeter}- authorities caused the sacred stone to be 
elevated upon a handsome base (^f ^^''esterly granite. 
And that those who \isit this beautiful spot may know 
upon whose monument they were gazing, a bronze 
tablet has been let into the easterly side of the base 
bearing this inscription : 

S.\CREi) Stone of the Oxicida Txdiaxs. 
This Stone was the National Altar of the 
Oneida Indians around which they gathered 
from \-ear to year to celebrate solemn 
religious rites and to worshi]) the Great Spirit. 
T\\\i\ were known as the tribe of the 
r])right Stone. This \aluable historical 
relic was brought here from Stockbridge, 
IMadison Countv. X. ^'., in 1840. ' ,' 



THE HIGHWAY AND THE FORTS. 



'J'liR Water Route Westward — Interrupted by 
THE Carrying Place at Rome — Forts Erected 
TO Protect This Potxt — Their Names and 
Xumber. 



THE Carrying Place. — In a wilderness the 
course of travel is generally restricted and tor- 
tuous. The hrst advances arc made along lakes 
and rivers. Between the eastern and western doors of 
tlie long house of the Iroquois there was a water route 
whicli included the Mohawk river on the east of the 
watershed at Rome, and Wood creek. Oneida lake, 
( )ncida and Oswego rivers and Lake Ontario on the 
other si(k' of the divide. At what is now Rome, the 
route was 1)roken 1)\- a neck of swaiup land over wluch 
the canoes nmst l)e carried, and this was termed "The 
Carrxing I'lace"' or "The Portage. "" The Dutch name 
for the carr)-ing ])lace was "l^row Plat."" 

Tlie Molinwk A'allev 1)\- land or water was the great 
route to tlie far west and Canada. Besides the water 
route there were in those earlv times trails wdiich 
followed the vallev. One trail coming up the valley 
on tlie north side cn^ssed the river at a ford near the 



36 Oneida County 

foot of Genesee street, L tica. [here were trails from 
this ford to the Oneida vilhiges and to the carrying- 
place. The earl}^ traders and trappers who went 
among- tlie Iroquois and to the country beyond the 
territory occupied l)}- the Confederacy used the 
Mohawk water route. In the early days the Indians 
found eniploMuent in carr\'ing goods of travelers 
across the portage, and it is recorded that e\en in those 
times the value of a monopoly asserted itself because 
there were complaints in 1754 about the charges made 
]3y the Indians for assisting the travelers overland witn 
their boats and baggage. 

The Forts. — The necessity for forts along the 
highway was discussed by the English in 1700. There 
was wealth in the fur trade with the Indians, and 
though nominalh' at peace, l)oth France and England 
claimed the territory of the Iroquois, and in conse- 
quence the control of the route through New York. 
In September, 1700, a commission sent out fn^m 
Albanv, traveled to Onondaga and returning repcM'ted 
in favor of erecting forts at the carrying place lietween 
the Mohawk and Wood creek. It does not api^ear that 
the recommendations were then acted upon. At the 
treatv of Utrecht bet\\een England and I '"ranee in 
1713. jurisdiction (ner the disputed territor\' was 
conceded to the h'nglish. 1die luiglish and the h'rench 
com])eted for tlie Indian fur trade. In T7-'4 tlie New 



Outline History. 37 

'^'lM■k merchants were forbidden by the Leg^islature to 
sell o-Qods to the French for Indian trade. This was 
done at the solicitation (»f the English Indian traders. 
Against this law the merchants protested. 

I).\ii: oi" h"i<i-x' riox. — Tlie date of the erection of 
the hrst fort in this territory is in donbt : bnt it is 
known that the I'Jio-lish erected a fort in Oswego in 
17J7. and as sn])i)lies for that place went by the way of 
the Mohawk river, it is assnmed the first fort was 
erected at the carrxing place soon after Oswego had 
thns been i)rotected. This first fort in the Oneida 
c< inntr\- was located at what is now Rome at the 
extreme western bend of the Mohawk river, south of 
the i)resent location of the Central-Hudson railway 
and near the Erie canal. This was Fort Craven, and 
it is saiil to have been destroyed by a flood. 

Six forts — those outposts of civilization — were at 
different times located along the natural highway 
between Oneida lake and the Oneida-Herkimer county 
line. Thev were Forts Craven. Bull. Newport, 
\\'illiams. Stanwix (also sometimes called Schuyler), 
and Fort Schuyler, and the greatest of these was Fort 
Stanwix — a bulwark of American liberty at which the 
king's column, sent to ravage the Mohawk valley, lost 
its strength and turned back o\er the road whence it 
came, leavine the \-allev undisturbed. Besides the forts 



38 Oneida County 

there was also at an early period a block-hotise at what 
is now the foot of Genesee street, Utica. 

Their Object. — The use of the forts was to guard 
the hig-hwav against the French when England and 
France were at war. and to furnish scouts and guides. 
The posts were erected generally with the permission 
of the Indians. 

In 1736, Indian traders petitioned the Assembly for 
the establishment of a fort at the carrying place "at 
the upper end of the Mohawk." 

Fort Williams was erected near the site of Fort 
Craven and Fort Bull was located two and one-half 
miles west, lying northwest from Fort Williams — a 
fort on each end of the carrying place. Though the 
waters are only about a mile part, the portage was 
much greater and it varied at different times and 
seasons. Fort Newport was also located at the carry- 
ing place, and between Forts Bull and W^illiams. Fort 
Newport appears never to have been finished. Each 
of these three fortifications was established prior , to 
1756. Forts Bull and \A'illiams were the scenes of 
important actions during the French and English war 
of 1754-5-6. 

Fort Schiwler was erected in 1758 or 1759 within 
the limits of the present city of Utica upon the south 
bank of the Mohawk river near the ford of the river. 
Its site was on a i)oint of land between the vlvev and 



Outline Hislory. 39 

Main street and sontlieast of Second street. Eastward 
along- the \alley there were other forts. 

CoxFL'SiON OF Names. — There has often been con- 
fusion over the location of Fort Schmder arising from 
a change of names. The original h'ort Schuyler was 
at the present site of LJtica. During the Revolution 
Fort Stanwix at Rome, then an important post, was 
changed by the patriots to Fort Schuyler, either 
because the name Stanwix was obnoxious to the 
patriots ov because they desired to honor the name of 
Schuyler, or both. 

Primitrk Works. — Compared with tw^entieth 
century fortifications these forts were not formidable. 
They were but spots in the dark forest; were con- 
structed of logs and earthw^ork. Fort Bull "stood on 
the north bank of Wood creek where the ground was 
so low that a dam across the creek just below- threw- 
the w^ater into and filled the ditch quite around it, thus 
easily forming a moat which rendered the fort difficult 
of access." The earthworks and the moat of Bull are 
plainly discernible to-da}-. 

A I'rench spy who traversed the highw\iy in T757 
wTote the following description of what he saw at the 
carrying place : 

''Fort Bull, which was burnt in 1756 by a detach- 
ment under (Orders of M. De Lery, was situated on the 
right bank of this river (W^ood creek) near its source 



40 Oneida County 

on the height of land. From Fort Bull to Fort 
\\ illiams is estimated to be one league and a quarter. 
This is the carrying place across the height of land. 
The English had constructed a road there, over which 
all the carriages passed. They were obliged to bridge 
a portion of it, extending from Fort Bull to a small 
stream near which a fort had been begun, though not 
finished. It was to be intermediate between the two 
forts, having been located precisely on the summit 
level. Fort Williams was situated on the right bank 
of the Moha^^■k or des Agnies, near the rise of that 
river or the height of land. It was abandoned and 
destroyed l3y the English after the capture of 
Chouegen" (Oswego). 

There was formerly a lagoon at Ballou's creek in 
Utica and it was beside this that Fort Schuyler was 
erected. This was a small stockade and did not figure 
to any extent in the military operations of the time. 
A garrison was kept here for some time, but the post 
was finally abandoned and fell into ruin. 

Fort Bull was destroyed in March, 1756. by a 
French coKinm, as will be described in another chapter. 

Fort W^illiams was destroyed bv General Webb, an 
Englisli commander, an act for which he has been 
criticised. The e\-ents leading up to the destruction 
of Fort \A^illiams were these : 

In T756 the English held Oswego. Count l^'rtMitenac 
on August IT, T756. besieged Oswegcx Colonel 



Outline History. 41 

Mercer, tlie commander, was killed. On August 14 
Lieutenant Colonel Littlehales, then commander, 
surrendered to the I'^rench. General Webb was in 
command of Fort Williams at the time, ha\ing just 
been sent up the valley to that post. He felled trees 
along the bank of W^ood creek to obstruct the progress 
of the enemy and when he heard of the fall of Oswego 
he set fire to Fort Williams and fled eastward, though 
Sir William Johnson was at that time in the valley 
with a force of 2,000 men ready to reinforce him 
should the F'rench advance. W^ebb's cowardly work 
was a severe blow- to the English. 

New life was enthused in the British cause and in 
1758, and tw^o years after the destruction of Fort 
W^illiams. Fort Stanwix was erected at a cost of 
£60,000 to succeed it at the carrying place. 

The custom prevailed at that date of naming forts 
after the military ofiicer superintending the work. 
General Stanw^ix erected the last fort at the portage, 
hence the name. During the old French war, 400 men 
were garrisoned at Fort Stanwix. 

Fort Stanwix is described thus: "It w-as a square 
fort, constructed on the most true and approved scien- 
tific principles of military engineering, having four 
bastions, surrounded by a broad ditch eighteen feet in 
depth, with a covert way and glacis. Tn the center of 
the ditch was a row of perpendicular pickets, and a 
horizontal row upon the ramparts." 



42 Oneida County 

The site of Fort Stanwix is now occupied by a block 
in Rome, which is bounded by Dominick, James, 
Liberty and Spring streets. 

The four bastions of Stanwix are marked with 
cannon and tablets which appropriately describe it as 
"the fort that never surrendered." 



THE FORT BULL MASSACRE. 



French and Indians Surprise and Massacre an 
English Garrison in 1756 — Sixty Persons 
Slain and Valuable Storks Destroyed — 
Victorious Force Retreated. 



FOR years the French and EngHsh struggled 
against each other for the mastery of the 
American continent. King George's War ended 
in 1748. but the next year the governor of Canada 
sent a band of men in birch bark canoes to the valley 
of the Allegheny river. They formally proclaimed 
Louis XV king of all the region drained by the Ohio. 
The arms of France stamped on a sheet of metal were 
nailed to a tree, and lead plates claiming the region 
of the Ohio were buried at several points. A few 
years later the French commenced to build forts, and 
when they entered the upper Allegheny valley. George 
Washington performed his first public service in 
obtaining information about these posts, at the direc- 
tion of the governor of Virginia, and in delivering a 
letter from the governor making a formal demand for 
the withdrawal of the French. Washington was then 
only twenty-one years old. The demand for with- 



44 Oneida Comity 

drawal was not complied with and hostilities followed, 
though Great Britain did not formally declare war 
until 1756. 

Plan of Campaign. — The English campaign of 
the year before had included three expeditions by land 
against the French, and each of these was over a 
natural highway through the wilderness. One was 
against Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburg) ; another was 
against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and the third 
was against Niagara. 

The last-named expedition went up the Mohawk 
valley and by the way of the portage and Oneida lake 
to Oswego, where the column rendezvoused. While 
waiting there for provisions, which did not arrive as 
expected, winter approached and the expedition against 
Niagara was abandoned. The second-named expedi- 
tion won a battle on Lake George, but the expedition 
against Du Ouesne was a total failure. In the 
campaign of 1755 the English, therefore, accomplished 
little. 

Then the English planned anew a similar campaign 
for the ensuing year, intending also to gain control of 
Lake Ontario. The French strengthened their forti- 
fications and determined to capture Oswego, and as 
the French knew that the supplies for Oswego went by 
the way of the Oneida carrying place, it was decided 
to attack the English at that point. 



O III Hue History. 45 

Invasion fko-m Canada. — In March, 1756, M. 
deLery with 362 men, of whom 103 were Indians, 
left Montreal for the carrying place. They traveled 
up the St. Lawrence on the ice to what is now Ogdens- 
burg. From that point they came down the country, 
wading through the deep snow in the woods and 
braving the torrents of the swollen rivers. It is 
thought that from the vicinity of what is now Boon- 
\ille they followed the valley of the Lansingkill and 
the Mohawk to Rome, which neighborhood they 
reached before da\light on the morning of Alarch 27, 
1756. They had then been fifteen days on the journey, 
had been lost in tlie wilderness for two days and had 
suffered terribly from cold and hunger, as they had 
been two days without food when the carrying place 
was reached. After a short rest, they, at 4 a. m.. 
resumed their march toward the head of the carrying 
place. 

.\t 5 .\. -M. scouts in adxance of the column captured 
two Englishmen from whom it was learned that the 
fort at the west end of the carrying place was called 
Fort Bull, after the captain in command : that it had a 
garrison of sixty soldiers: that the fori was in the 
shape of a star ; was constructed of heavy pickets, 
fifteen to eighteen feet high and doubled on the inside 
to the height of a man ; that it had no cannon but had 
recently been supplied with a number of grenades 
which Sir William Johnson sent from down the vallev 



46 Oneida County 

upon learning of the expedition. Fort Bull was well 
supplied with provisions. They also told deLery that 
fifteen batteaux were to leave that evening for Oswego 
with provisions and that at that time sleighs loaded 
with provisions were going over the portage in the 
direction of Wood creek with nine batteaux loads. 
Fort Williams, the prisoners said, was of larger pickets, 
well planked, had four cannon and a garrison of 150 
men commanded by Captain Williams. 

The Attack. — At 10 o'clock in the forenoon the 
Indians captured ten men who were escorting sleigh- 
loads of provisions across the carrying place, and 
deLery immediately distributed these provisions among 
his hungry followers. But while the distribution was 
in progress, deLery learned that a negro who had been 
in the last party had escaped and had run in the direc- 
tion of Fort Williams. The French commander then 
decided to attack Fort Bull without delay. As the 
Indians were reluctant to fight, the main body was 
left to guard the prisoners and the trail, while deLery's 
men and twenty Indians hastened toward the fort on 
Wood creek. DeLery had ordered his men not to fire 
a shot or to make any noise, hoping to rush through 
the gate. But the Indians when near the fort whooped 
in their excitement, and, thus warned, the garrison 
was enabled to close the gate before the attacking 
column reached it. DeLery then summoned the com- 



Outline History. 47 

mander to surrender, promising mercy in the event of 
capitulation. The answer from within the fort was a 
volley of musketry and grenades. A number of 
deLery's men got possession of the portholes and held 
them. Their comrades attacked the gate and after an 
hour's work it was battered down. 

The Massacre. — Crying "Vive le roi !," the French 
rushed into the fort, and of the garrison of sixty all 
but five persons, one a woman, were put to death. 

DeLery then engaged his men in throwing powder 
and stores into the creek. A magazine catching fire 
during the pillage, the victorious troops hastily with- 
drew, but in the explosion wliich ensued a soldier and 
an Indian were wounded by flying debris. 

Relief Partv Repulsed. — Meanwhile, the negro 
who had escaped from the advance guard carried the 
news to Fort Williams, and soon deLery was notified 
that the English were making a sortie from Fort 
Williams. He thereupon collected his men and 
advanced to meet the enemy. But his Indian allies had 
repulsed the relief party, killing seventeen Englishmen 
in the engagement. 

DeLery's Indian allies had been opposed to attacking 
Fort Bull, and notwithstanding the victories of the day 
they refused to participate in an attack upon Fort 
Williams (afterward Fort Stanwix) because Fort 



48 Oneida County 

Williams was larger and stronger than the post which 
had just fallen. 

The Retreat. — The French and Indians then drew 
off and camped. The French, having a chaplain, fell 
on their knees and thanked God for their victory. After 
the second night the retreat was hastily made because 
they feared the wrath of Sir William Johnson of the 
Mohawk valley, who was said to be in pursuit. Unable 
to carry enough provisions to last them, deLery's men 
suffered as severely on their return to Canada as they 
had during the advance. 

It is not believed that Fort Bull was ever afterwards 
rebuilt or occupied by an armed force. 

The war dragged on in America until 1760, and in 
Europe until 1763, when peace was declared and 
France divided her American possession between. 
England and Spain. 




GENERAL HERKIMER'S STATUE AT HERKIMER, N. Y. 



THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY. 



The Importance of This Battle — The Rising of 
THE Valley Patriots — The March, the Am- 
buscade AND THE Battle — Effect on Fort 
Stanwix — British Estimate. 



LONG before the extent of the America continent 
was known, the key to the American colonies 
was recognized to be Central New York. As the 
Iroquois owed their supremacy, in part at least, to the 
peculiar position of their "Long House," so it followed 
that the white people who dominated the land must 
gain possession of that key. There were times when 
it was tacitly held in common with the Indians, but 
when the great conflicts came between nations foreign 
to each other, and between brother nations, then this 
key played an all-important part in the stupendous 
dramas of those times. 

Importance. — The battle of Oriskany, the greatest 
fought within the county, was not a conilict in which 
there w^ere large numbers of men engaged. But its 
importance on the history of our nation may scarcely 
be over-estimated, because it was one of the fine points 
on which the affairs of the republic turned when the 



50 Oneida County 

result of the strife for liberty was in the balance; 
because it was typical of the whole struggle from every 
conceivable point of view ; because posterity has raised 
it and its patriotic participants to their proper place in 
the annals of the nation. George Washington saw its 
importance. "Herkimer," he said, "first reversed the 
gloomy scene of the campaign." 

Conditions. — Two years and more had elapsed 
since the battle of Lexington (April 19, 1775). At 
the time of the battle of Oriskany (August 6, 1777) 
the British arms were in the situation of probable 
ascendency, though the Declaration of Independence 
was but a year old. 

The war storm was fiercest in New York that 
summer. A British fleet had sailed up the Hudson. 
The British general, Burgoyne, came down Lake 
Champlain to meet it, and Col. Barry St. Leger, chosen 
by the English king for the mission, was to come in 
through Oswego and follow the traditional trail down 
through the Mohawk valley to join the other forces at 
Albany. Meanwhile Tory bands were ravaging the 
country to the south and the east. There was jealousy 
in the American army. Washington had been openly 
criticised and stealthily assailed, and the financial 
affairs of the nation were not among the least of its 
troubles. The British were strongly entrenched in 
New York, and held all of Canada. With the country 



Outline History. 51 

between the Hudson and the lakes in their possession, 
the British would have been able to cut off New 
England from its companions, and, standing between 
the colonies, might from this central ground rend the 
embryo nation asunder. 

Colonel St. Leger advanced from Oswego on his way 
to Albany with confidence. The first obstacle which 
he was to encounter was a frontier fort at the carrying 
place between the Mohawk river and Wood creek, then 
known as Fort Schuyler but afterward known as Fort 
Stanwix. It had been built nineteen years before 
(1758) as a protection against the French. But the 
English had gained Canada in 1760, and thereafter 
the fort lost its importance, save as a protection to the 
carrying place and a meeting place with the Indians. 

The Forces. — In April preceding the battle. Col. 
Peter Gansevoort, a native of Albany, twenty-eight 
years old. and Lieut. Col. Marinus Willet occupied this 
fort with the Third Regiment of the New York line. 
The fort had gone to ruin, but Col. Gansevoort repaired 
its broken walls so effectually that when the king's own 
choice appeared before it they found it too strong to 
attack, though the plans of the patriots for reconstruc- 
tion had by no means been carried to fruition. 

Col. Gansevoort's garrison consisted of 750 men. 
The chaplain was Samuel Kirkland, missionary to the 
Six Nations of Indians. Gansevoort had won his title 



52 Oneida County 

with Montgomery at Quebec. St. Leger, who was 
opposed to him, was an experienced soldier, skilled in 
strategy. With St. Leger was Joseph Brant — Thayen- 
danegea — the chief of the Mohawks, a man of personal 
magnetism, in whom the genius of the Indian had 
been supplemented and developed by an education in 
the schools of Connecticut. He was a power among 
the Indians, a pet among the British, and an especial 
favorite in the family of Sir William Johnson in the 
Mohawk valley. Brant had arrayed the Six Nations, 
with the exception of the Oneidas and the Tuscaroras. 
on the side of the British, and he accompanied the St. 
Leger expedition at the head of the Indian allies. Su^ 
John Johnson led the forces which had been organized 
from among those of the settlers in the Mohawk valley 
who sympathized with the crown. The English column 
was a picked force, called for a pet name ''The King's 
Regiment." It came from ^lontreal. The rendezvous 
was Buck island at the entrance to Lake Ontario. 

Leaving that point on July 19, the advance guard 
came in sight of Fort Schuyler on August 2. and on 
the 5th of August the attack was begun, but the 
cannons had no effect on the sod work of the fort. On 
the day on which the advance guard of British appeared 
the fort had received a consignment of supplies by 
boats on the Mohawk river. St. Leger upon arriving 
before the fort was so confident of its capitulation that 
he had .sent a dispatch to Burgoyne assuring him that 



Outline History. 53 

he would take the fort chrectly and then join him at 
Albany. 

Patriot Farmers. — Meanwhile the patriot settlers 
in the Mohawk valley were hurrying to arms. St. 
Leger's scouts, ever watchful, carried news to him of 
the assemblage of the various bands, and when a 
column marched from Fort Dayton (at Herkimer) he 
was appraised of the assistance coming to the besieged 
garrison. For weeks before he appeared at the head 
of the valley, the coming of St. Leger had been 
expected. Nicholas Herchkeinier, as his name was then 
written, had just l)ecn commissioned a brigacher 
general b\- Congress. He warned General Schuyler at 
Albanv. and on Jul}' rj he issued a proclamation 
announcing that the enemy 2,000 strong were at 
Oswego, and that upon their approach every male 
person between sixteen and sixty years of age should 
be ready to oppose St. Leger's advance. General 
Herkimer knew that the enemy was soon to strike, but 
from rumors at hand and from recent experiences in 
the country south of the Mohawk vallc}- region it was 
difficult at that time to point to the direction out of 
which the invaders might appear. July 30 he was 
appraised of the coming of St. Leger. and he imme- 
diately issued an order which brought in 800 settlers, 
nearly all of whom were German and low Dutch, 
though Fnglish, Irish, Scotch, Welsh and French were 



54 Oneida County 

there also. They met at Fort Dayton, near where the 
West Canada creek falls into the Mohawk. St. Leger's 
force numbered from 1,500 to 1,800. On August 4 
General Herkimer's column advanced toward Fort 
Stanwix. Crossing the ford of the Mohawk at Utica, 
they reached Whitestown on August 5, where it is 
thought that they were joined by a band of the Oneida 
Indians. Herkimer had sent a messenger to arrange 
for co-operation between his column and the fort, but 
the messenger was delayed, and while Herkimer was 
waiting for intelligence that the garrison knew of his 
coming, dissension arose in his staff. His aides 
pointed out objections to waiting, urged that the 
garrison might capitulate while he delayed, and 
Herkimer was accused of cowardice. His anger 
stirred, he threw caution to the wind and ordered an 
advance. 

The rude corduroy road on the south side of the 
river descended into a marsh, and the path lay on 
through a narrow ravine west of what is now 
Oriskany. Along the way the 800 straggled like a 
mob rather than soldiers. The advance gained 
the higher ground in the deep, dense woods, and in 
that instant the battle of Oriskany broke upon the 
settlers of the Mohawk valley like a bolt from the sky. 

The Ambush. — St. Leger, apprised of the coming 
of assistance to the fort, checked the column. Sir John 



Outline History. 55 

Johnson and his brother-in-law, Col. John Butler, and 
Brant, the Indian chief, were sent out to meet the 
settlers with 1,200 men. Leaving the camp under 
cover of darkness they secreted themselves above and 
around the ravine on the morning of the 6th of August 
and silently awaited the coming of the patriots. 

It was about 10 o'clock when the men in ambush 
opened fire, and the first onslaught cut Herkimer's 
column in two, throwing the 800 patriots into confu- 
sion. But Herkimer rallied those about him just west 
of the ravine. Wounded early in the engagement, he 
sat on his saddle under a birch tree and smoking his 
pipe directed the battle. "I will face the enemy," he 
said when his comrades urged him to seek a safer place. 

A number of those in the rear of Herkimer's column 
were separated from their friends, chased toward the 
river and despatched. The fight extended over a 
period of five hours. The opposing forces fought from 
behind trees and sometimes hand-to-hand. The details 
show^ strange occurrences in the fra}-. A terrific 
thunder storm caused a lull in the battle. It is a tradi- 
tion that the storm cut a broad patch through the forest 
in the direction from which the enemy came. A detach- 
ment of Johnson's Greens (British) entered the fight 
endeavoring to appear as reinforcing the patriots, but 
Herkimer's farmers quickly detected the fraud, and 
cut the detachment into pieces. A fifteen-year-old 
Indian girl fought with the patriots. The Indian allies 



56 Oneida County 

of the British lost many warriors and suddenly became 
suspicious that the British were seeking to destroy 
them, whereupon the Indians fired on the British, and 
thus they rendered an unexpected and valuable service 
to the patriots. 

The Sortie. — But while the battle of Oriskany 
raged, there was another event of equal importance at 
Fort Stanwix. As soon as Herkimer's delayed mes- 
sengers arrived at the fort. Colonel Willett, at the head 
of 250 men, left the fortification and descended upon 
the enemy's encampments, of which there were four. 
He routed the British and captured the contents of two 
encampments, including five flags. This sortie had a 
decided influence on the battle of Oriskany, for it 
indirectly gave assistance to Herkimer's column by 
attracting the attention of the enemy in another quarter 
and prevented the sending of reinforcements. 

Those five flags were hoisted upside downi upon the 
fort, and over them, for the first time in its history, the 
Stars and Stripes, the flag of the Republic, was flung 
to the breeze. Congress had but recently conceived 
the design of this flag. The patriots made it from 
pieces of rude clothing. It was first displayed in the 
face of an enemy in Oneida county on a critical day — 
that day on which the fortunes of the struggling 
Republic changed and which have ever since grown 
brighter. 



Outline IJisfory. 57 

Close of the Battle. — The battle of Oriskany 
continued until the British fell back. It is thought that 
they were drawn ofif upon learning of the sortie from 
the fort. They left the patriot column broken, but in 
the possession of the field. St. Leger checked the 
advance of Herkimer's men. prevented them from 
reaching the fort, and in that he gained an element of 
victory. On the other hand, in accomplishing this St. 
Leger exhausted the fighting strength of his command 
beyond all hope of capturing the fort, and he was thus 
turned back at the fateful pass. 

Losses. — The patriots' loss in the battle was 200; 
the British was from 150 to 200. The death ratio at 
the battle of Oriskany was higher than in any other 
battle of the Revolution. 

The patriots carried ofif their wounded at the close 
of the fight. Herkimer was taken home on a litter of 
boughs. His wounded leg was amputated, but he died 
on August 16. Some of the dead lay unburied on the 
field for eighteen days, until the coming of a second 
army to the relief of the fort. 

Retreat. — St. Leger returned from Oriskany to the 
siege of Fort Stanwix. where he remained till August 
22. when he fled. On that day. General Benedict 
Arnold reached the site of LTtica with a volunteer army 
for the relief of Fort Stanwix. Two days later Arnold 
arrived at the fort. The retreat of St. Leger was 



58 Oneida County 

practically an undisciplined rout. He had reluctantly 
raised the siege because the Indians wanted to leave. 
In the retreat quarrels arose. The Indians murdered 
prisoners and also any of the British who fell behind. 
Those who advanced as allies retreated as foes. 

Effect. — The physical effect of the battle was far 
reaching. It spoiled the military plan of the British, 
crippled Burgoyne and broke the Indian alliance. Also, 
the moral effect was far reaching, for there was never 
afterwards a Tory uprising in the Mohawk valley, 
though Sir John Johnson had boasted that the settlers 
of the valley were loyal to the king. It opened the way 
for other American victories, notwithstanding that St. 
Leger claimed Oriskany itself to have been his victory. 

In his address at the centennial celebration of the 
battle of Oriskany, Hon. Ellis H. Roberts said: 
"Wherein was the stand of the Greeks at Thermopylae 
braver than this march of Herkimer into the ravine? 
Wherein have Norse vikings shown sturdier stuff in 
fight? Tell me when panoplied crusader ever made 
more light of death than those unmailed farmers of 
the Mohawk? Cite from verse of ancient or modern 
poet the elan of truer courage, the steadiness of sterner 
determination, the consecration of more glowing patri- 
otism than held the pass at Oriskany." 

British estimate of the importance of this battle is 
not wanting, if any son of Oneida should feel that home 




ORISKANY MONUMENT. 



Outline History. 59 

enthusiasm has raised the importance of this defense 
of the pass to a greater elexation than facts warrant. 
The British Annual Register for 1777 contains this: 
"Nothing could have heen more untoward in the 
present situation of affairs than this (St. Leger's) 
expedition. The Americans represented this and the 
afifair at Bennington as great and glorious victories. 
Ganse\''oort and \\''illett with Starke and Warner (the 
latter two of Bennington) were ranked among those 
who were considered the saviors of their country." 

The Monument. — The centennial anniversary of 
the battle of Oriskany was celebrated August 5, 1877. 
On the 6th of August, 1884, a noble granite monument, 
which had been reared by the Oneida Historical 
Society, was dedicated. 7"he graceful shaft rises among 
peaceful scenes to mark the spot where the blood of 
patriots was freel}- poured (~tut in the successful effort 
to check a dangerous foe. L'pon its base in imperish- 
able bronze is told the story of the struggle, and to 
this is appended the names of those in Herkimer's band 
of farmers who on that day laid down their lives for 
T.ibertv. 



STORY OF THE FLAG. 



Form of the Stars and Stripes Planned and 
Adopted — Fort Stanwix Garrison Constructed 
One — First Time the Emblem Ever Bid Defi- 
ance TO A Foe. 

IN the early part of the Revolutionary war the flags 
used by the Continental troops were of many pat- 
terns, but as a Union and a Republic shaped itself 
out of the war of the colonies against unjust taxation, 
so there came out of the cluster of banners a new and 
significant emblem, born with the new republic. 

July 2, 1776. Congress said: "That these united 
colonies are and of right ought to be free and inde- 
pendent states ; and that all political connection between 
us and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be 
totally dissolved." 

On July 4. 1776, the Declaration of Independence 
was adopted, proclaiming to the world that a new 
Republic had arisen. 

The Flag Planned. — The plan of the flag had been 
conceived the year before its adoption. Tn the latter 
part of May, 1776, George Washington, Col. George 
Ross of his staff, and Hon. Robert Morris, the financier 



Outline History. 6i 

of the Revolution, called upon Mrs. Betsy Ross, a niece 
of Colonel Ross. She was a pretty woman, twenty- 
four years old, an upholsterer's widow, who lived in a 
little house in No. 239 Arch street, Pliiladelphia. 
Washington had a rough sketch of a proposed flag 
with thirteen stars and thirteen stripes, and with Betsy 
Ross this committee of three discussed the plan of the 
flag. Tra(Htion relates that the stars proposed by 
Washington were six-pointed and that Betsy Ross 
pointed out that they should be five-pointed. 

Acting under the instructions of this committee, 
Betsy Ross made a flag (the original of our present 
Stars and Stripes) and though Congress took no action 
that year upon the national emblem, she was instructed 
to make other flags of the same pattern. Colonel Ross 
furnishing the funds. The first flag was made of 
English bunting. Now the bunting is manufactured 
in our own country, but otherwise the original flag 
was the same as the flag of to-day, excepting, of course, 
the changes which have been made necessary by the 
growth of the union. 

The Flag Adopted. — Congress adopted the flag 
now so familiar to the world on June 14, 1777, about 
a year after it had been designed, though a month 
previous to the adoption that body had sent to Mrs. 
Ross an order for £14 12s 2d for flags for the fleet in 
the Delaware. 



62 Oneida County 

The resolution of adoption is brief : "Resolved, 
That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen 
stripes alternate red and white ; that the union be 
thirteen stars in the blue field, representing a new con- 
stellation." There is no recorded discussion regarding 
the flag. Nor is this strange, for there were matters 
of greater moment in the minds of the nation's law- 
makers at that time. Congress was merely adopting 
what had been agreed upon as the flag. 

The Fort Stanwix Flag. — Washington had urged 
the colonels to provide their regiments wdth flags. The 
garrison at Fort Stanwix had no colors, and it may 
readily be imagined that the provision of a flag there 
as elsewhere had been left until sterner duties had been 
done. But members of the garrison set about the 
making of the emblem of the new Republic. The 
record declares that "Stripes of white were cut from 
ammunition shirts ; blue from a camlet cloak captured 
from the enemy, while the red was supplied from such 
odds and ends of clothes of that hue as were at hand." 

The cloak referred to had been captured from the 
enemv in an engagement at Peekskill, on March 22, 
1777. 

There is in the possession of the Oneida Flistorical 
Society at Utica a photographic copy of a letter written 
by Capt. Abraham Swartout of Poughkeepsie in which 
he savs that he furnished his cloak to provide the blue 



Outline History. 63 

of the rtag, and that he afterward made requisition 
upon the department for another cloak. 

First Stars and Stripes Displayed in Face of 
THE Enemy. — There is no shadow of doubt that this 
crude flag, constructed by the brave little garrison in 
the fort that "never surrendered," was the first Stars 
and Stripes displayed in the face of an enemy. This 
claim is allowed by all careful historians, and it is 
especially fitting that residents of Oneida county should 
remember this and hold as a matter of pride that 
within their territory the Stars and Stripes first floated 
defiantly before the onslaught of a foe. The bronze 
tablets which mark the site of Fort Stanwnx in Rome 
record this fact. 

Thirteen Stripes. — In after years the number of 
stripes increasing with the admission of new^ states, a 
change became necessary to meet future requirements 
— a change whereby the character of the flag might not 
be disturbed though the design should still continue to 
be emblematic of the entire Union. Accordingly on 
April 4. 18 18, Congress enacted : "That from and after 
the fourth day of July next, the flag of the United 
States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and 
white ; that the union be twenty stars, white, in a blue 
field, and that on the admission of a new state into the 
Union one star be added to the union of the flag: and 



64 Oneida County 

that such addition take effect on the fourth day of July 
next succeeding such admission." 

There are now forty-six stars in the flag, the last 
one having been added July 4, [go8. and representing 
the state of Oklahoma. 



THE ROADS. 



Improvement in Ways of Communication Neces- 
sary — State Roads and Turnpikes Opened — 
Stages and Mail Routes. 

THE intUix of emigrants into Central New York 
— the lieautiful wilderness which the soldiers 
had passed through in their campaign — which 
came after the Revolutionary war, soon brought about 
the construction of a road, not only for the needs of 
the ]\Iohawk \-alley, but for direct overland communi- 
cation with the Genesee valley country, which was then 
tlie far west. The first roads were like the wood roads 
now to be seen in the Adirondacks. They were hastily 
constructed ways. Streams w^ere forded and logs were 
thrown down in swampy places to bear the traffic of 
the time. In 1790 a road was opened to tlie Genesee 
country by men who had there planted a colony. In 
1794 a road was opened from Albany to Utica. In 
1794 the state laid out a road from Utica to Avon on 
the Genesee river, and afterward made appropriations 
for its construction. Over this on September 30, 
1797, a stage started from Old Fort Schuyler (Utica) 
and reached Geneva in three days. These roads were 
rough and crude in the extreme, but they w'ere later 



66 Oneida County 

improved. The Genesee turnpike took in Whitestown 
and Fort Stanwix. 

In 1800 the Seneca Turnpike Company was char- 
tered to construct a road west from Utica. Its route 
was that of an Indian trail, through what is now New 
Hartford, Kirkland, Vernon, and Oneida Castle. 

It will be noticed that the construction of roads and 
the building of the first canal system in this territory 
were taken up at about the same date. In the same 
period came the mail route established in 1792 between 
Albany and Whitesboro, and a year later there was a 
stage route which would carry passengers between the 
same points for $3.00. 

In the early days, the great trunk lines of State high- 
ways were given considerable attention. They were 
laid out one hundred feet wide, the State aided their 
building and maintenance, and extraordinary efforts 
were put forward to keep them in repair. They were 
generally known as "Post Roads," for over them were 
carried the mails of the country, and public stages 
made regular trips. Sometimes sections of the main 
highways were leased or assigned to companies that 
were formed for that purpose, and plank roads w^ere 
built and toll gates were erected for the collection of 
revenues to keep the roads in repair. The State often 
authorized the holding of lotteries in which there would 
be a number of capital prizes and numerous small 
awards. The sale of tickets for the drawings was 



Outline History. 67 

large, and very considerable sums would be secured 
for the construction or repair of roads. One of the 
curious features in local newspapers in the first half of 
the last century — viewed in the light of modern days 
— was the publication of advertisements of "Grand 
Drawings" conducted by the State for the benefit of 
roads, and many of these are to be found in the old 
newspapers of Oneida county. 

During the years of most active railroad develop- 
ment, attention to public highways declined. The 
mails were transferred to the railroads as far as possi- 
ble, the stage lines disappeared, pleasure driving was a 
thing scarcely heard of, long journeys by carriage were 
rare. The roads were used only by the agriculturalists, 
and their condition became deplorable indeed. A 
system of local supervision was installed, and each 
township was divided into a number of road districts. 
Each landowner was assessed a certain number of 
days' work on the highway in his immediate district, 
and bridges were maintained by a town fund, collected 
for that purpose. " The result • was that there was 
neither concert nor harmony in the building or care of 
highways, and many of them were almost impassable 
during fall, winter and spring months. In a great 
measure this added to the discontent that had grown 
up with country life, and aided in the movement that 
set in soon after the close of the Civil W'ar to seek 



68 Oneida County 

the cities and towns as places of residence, instead of 
the country. 

Improved Conditions. — ^After long agitation the 
State, in 1898, passed a law looking toward securing 
better roads. It was realized that the scattered inhabi- 
tants of a country district could not build and maintain 
expensive macadam roadways, and a plan was evolved 
through which the State pays a portion of the cost and 
the county the balance. The boards of supervisors 
designate certain roads that are to be improved. These 
are selected as trunk lines, and the plan followed in 
Oneida county has been to select for improvement 
those roads that would bring each farm in the county 
within five miles of some one of the trunk lines. 
Through this plan the entire county will in time be 
gridironed with macadam roads, over which heavy 
loads may be easily drawn at any time of year, and 
which offer light driving the most favorable conditions. 

One of the first roads in the State to be improved 
under the new plan was the section of the river road 
east of Deerfield Corners, extending to the Herkimer 
county line. 

At the close of the working season in the fall of 
1908 nearly eighty-eight miles of improved roads have 
been constructed in this county. There is at this time 
a completed line of macadam roadway from the eastern 
line of the countv to the citv of Rome on the north side 



Outline History. 69 

of the Mohawk river, following the old State highway 
along that section. The Seneca turnpike has been 
improved from New Hartford through Kirkland and 
Lairdsville to Oneida Castle. The famous road from 
Utica through the Sauquoit \'alley to Bridgewater has 
been brought to perfection through the new system. 
Nearly eight miles of improved road has been built on 
the Augusta turnpike through Vernon and \\'estmore- 
land to Rome. Up the beautiful Mohawk valley north 
of Rome, through Westernville and North ^^'estern, 
the new road parallels the Black River canal and will 
ultimately reach to Boonville. And still another trunk 
line is stretching out from Rome to Taberg. 

In passing from this subject it is well to draw 
attention to the fact that in the good roads agitation 
that was carried orr for a number of years before the 
State finally took the matter up in an intelligent 
manner, a citizen of Oneida county was one of the 
most persistent advocates of better roads. Had it not 
been for the almost constant work that W. Pierrepont 
White of Utica gave to this great economical question, 
it is probable that better roads would have been long 
delayed in their coming. 



CANALS, RAILROADS, TELEGRAPH. 



Washington Interested in Canals — His Trip and 
Letter — First Canals — How Operated — Erie, 
Chenango and Black River — The Railroads — 
The Telegraph — Activity in This Section — 
Developed by Oneida County Men. 

AS the country expanded and travel increased the 
importance of our pass grew apace. The trails 
through the wilderness had developed into 
roads, but of such a primitive character that travel 
still favored the water route which, though exceedingly 
tortuous, was still favorable for freight. 

Waterway Improvements Suggested. — When^ 
therefore, means of improving communication between 
the Hudson valley and the west were contemplated, 
the thought was naturally in the direction of improving 
the water way. As early as 1724 plans for inland 
navigation were suggested. 

Washington's Visit. — The subject of canals had 
<:>ccupied the mind of Washington before the Revolu- 
tion. Upon the close of the great struggle, he saw in 
the improvement of means of internal communication 
the advancement of the prosperity of the nation. In 



Outline History. 71 

1784 he personally explored the route of the Mohawk 
valley and Oneida lake. In a letter to the Marquis of 
Chastellux he said: "I have lately made a tour 
through the Lakes George and Champlain as far as 
Crown Point ; then returning to Schenectady, I pro- 
ceeded up the Mohawk river to Fort Schuyler, crossed 
over to Wood creek, which empties into the Oneida 
lake, and affords the water communication with 
Ontario. I then traversed the country to the head of 
the eastern banks of the Susquehanna, and viewed the 
L>ake Otsego and the portage between that lake and 
the Mohawk river at Canajoharie. Prompted by these 
actual observations I could not help taking a more 
contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland 
navigation of these United States, and could not but 
be struck with the immense diffusion and importance 
of it, anrl with the goodness of that Providence who 
has dealt his favors to us with so profuse a hand. 
Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve 
them, I shall not rest contented until I have explored 
the western country, and traversed those lines (or 
great part of them) which have given bounds to a new 
empire." 

The First Canal.- — In 1791 a commission was 
appointed to survey the carrying place at Rome and to 
estimate the cost of a canal. The following year the 
commission reported that the cost to improve by locks 



72 Oneida County 

and canals the route from Albany to Seneca lake would 
be $200,000. On March 30, 1792, the Northern and 
Western Inland Lock Navigation Company was incor- 
porated. There were two companies — one for the 
opening of lock navigation from the Hudson to Lake 
Champlain, which was called the Northern. The other 
company was to open lock navigation between the 
Hudson and Lakes Ontario and Seneca, and that was 
the ^^^estern company. Each had a capital stock of 
1,000 shares of $25.00 each. Later the capital stock 
of the companies was largely increased and the state 
subscribed to the stock of each. The work contem- 
plated by the Western company was the removing of 
obstructions in the natural water courses, the construc- 
tion of canals and locks at Little Falls and at Fort 
Stanwix. The work was accomplished and in the 
spring of 1796 the Western canals were opened from 
Schenectady to Seneca Falls for the passage of boats 
of sixteen tons burden. 

The Carrying Place Canal. — The canal at Fort 
Stanwix was one and three-quarters miles long and a 
portion of its bed is now occupied by the Erie canal. 
There was a lock at each end. A feeder from the 
Mohawk river furnished part of the water supply for 
this canal. The feeder entered it at about the middle. 
Thirteen isthmuses were cut in Wood creek to facilitate 
navigation, and in 1796 boats passed through this canal 



Outline History. 73 

and down to Oneida lake. The work of this western 
canal system had up to 1797 cost $400,000. The boats 
used along the course were open, flat-bottomed, thirty- 
five or forty feet long, and propelled by men with poles. 
The poleman set an end of the pole against the banks 
or the bottoms, put his shoulder to the other end and 
pushed. Along each side of these boats were walking 
boards upon which the navigators stood. Four men 
on each side of a boat could drive it about eighteen 
miles a day up stream. Sails were used wherever 
advantageous wind was encountered. Later, oars were 
substituted for the poles. It required nine days to 
make the trip from Utica to Oswego — 113 miles. The 
heavy tolls which were imposed stimulated land travel. 
In 1820 the state purchased the property of the 
Western Inland Navigation Company. The Erie canal 
had then been commenced. 

Erie C.a.nal. — The construction of the Erie canal 
was the result of many ideas for the improvement of 
the State, promulgated over a series of years. History 
places men of Central New York in the foremost rank 
of those who shaped the plans and carried them out. 
Oneida participated actively in the first legislation. 
Judge Benjamin Wright, a noted engineer of his day, 
was an assemblyman in 1707-08. Joshua Forman. a 
member from Onondaga county, was his room-mate 
at Albanv. Assemblvman Forman introduced a reso- 



74 Oneida County 

hition for a canal survey from the Hudson- to Lake 
Erie. Judge Wright seconded it. The resolution was 
adopted ; the survey was made by Simon DeWitt and 
Mr. Wright. Their report created much discussion. 
On motion of Senator Jonas Piatt of Oneida, in 1810 
commissioners were appointed to explore the proposed 
canal route. The project was further advanced until 
the war of 18 12 turned attention from it. 

The Canal Authorized. — Interest was revived 
upon the close of the war. In 181 5 we find Jonas 
Piatt among those who were fighting for it. Two 
years later (18 17) the law authorizing its construction 
was enacted and in June, 18 17, a contract for the con- 
struction of the middle section (Utica to the Seneca 
river) was let. July 4, 181 7, ground for the canal was 
broken at Rome. The course of the canal was then 
south of Rome. Later the course was changed to its 
present bed. The middle section of the canal (94 
miles) was completed in 18 19, at a cost of $1,125,983. 

Ftr.st Section Navigated. — That portion of the 
canal between Rome and LTtica was the first part of the 
canal that was ready for navigation. On October 21, 
18 19. the channel was filled with water from the 
Oriskany creek. On October 22, a boat named the 
"Chief Engineer," of Rome, N. Y., in honor of Judge 
Benjamin Wright, made a trial trip from Rome to 



Outline History. 75 

Utica. There was a band aboard and the boat was 

received in Utica with joyful demonstrations. 

I 

Opening Described. — The following letter descrip- 
tive of the opening was written by a Utican and pub- 
lished in a newspaper at Albany : 

"The last two days have presented in this village a 
scene of liveliest interest, and I consider it among the 
privileges of my life to have been present to witness it. 
On I'riday afternoon I walked to the head of the grand 
canal, the eastern extremity of which reaches to within 
a very short distance of the village and from one of the 
slight and airy bridges which crossed it I had a sight 
which could not but exhilarate and elevate the mind. 
The waters were flowing in from the westward and 
coming down their untried channel towards the sea. 
Their course, owing to the absorption of the new banks 
of the canal and the distance they had to run from 
where the stream entered it. was much slower than I 
had anticipated. They continued gradually to steal 
along from bridge to bridge, and at first only spreading 
over the bed of the canal, imperceptibly rose and 
washed its sides with a gentle wave. It was dark 
before they reached the eastern extremity, but at 
sunrise next morning they were on a level two and a 
half feet deep throughout the whole distance of 
thirteen miles. The interest manifested by the whole 
countrv as this new internal river rolled its first waves 



yd Oneida County 

thruiigh the state can not be described. You might see 
the people running across the fields, climbing on trees 
and fences, and crowding the bank of the canal to gaze 
upon the welcome sight. A boat had been prepared at 
Rome and as the waters came down the canal you 
might mark their progress by that of this new 'Argo' 
which floated triumphantly along the Hellespont of the 
West, accompanied by the shouts of the people, and 
having on her deck a military band. At nine the next 
morning the bells began a merry peal, and the com- 
missioners proceeded in carriages from Bagg's Hotel 
to the place of embarkation. The governor, accom- 
panied by General VanRensselaer, Rev. Mr. Stansbury 
of Albany, Rev. Mr. Blatchford of Lansingburg, Judge 
Miller of Utica, Mr. Holley, Mr. Seymour, Judge 
Wright, Colonel Lansing, Mr. Childs, Mr. Clark, Mr. 
Bonner, and a large company of their friends, em- 
barked and were received with the roll of the drum 
and the shouts of a multitude. The boat which 
received them is built for passengers, is sixty-one feet 
in length and seven and one-half feet in width, having 
two rising cabins of fourteen feet each, with a flat 
deck between them. In forty minutes the company 
reached Whitesboro, the boat being drawn by a single 
horse, which walked on the towing-path, attached to a 
towing-rope about sixty feet long. The horse appar- 
ently traveled with the utmost ease. The boat, though 
literally loaded with passengers, drew but fourteen 



Outline History. yy 

inches of water. A military band played patriotic airs. 
From bridge to bridge, from village to village, the 
procession was sainted with cannon, and every bell 
whose sound conld reach the canal swung as with 
instinctive life as it passed by." 

Completed. — The original Erie canal was com- 
pleted in the fall of 1825. It was 363 miles long and 
the total cost was $7,143,789.86, or $19,679.87 per 
mile. On October 26 of the year of its completion 
Go\crnor Clinton and others left Buffalo on a squad- 
ron of boats and made the trip to New York. The 
trip from beginning to end was a continuous ovation. 

The Chenango Canal. — This waterway, connect- 
ing the Susquehanna river at Binghamton with the 
Erie canal at Utica, 97 miles long, was commenced in 
July, 1834, and completed two years later at a cost of 
$2,782,124. For a number of years it was an impor- 
tant coal route, but the advent of railroads caused it 
to be eventually abandoned. 

The Black River Canal. — The construction of 
the Black River canal was authorized in 1836. The 
canal was opened between Rome and Port Leyden 
in 185 1. Afterward a dam was constructed at Car- 
thage on the Black ri\er. making the river navigable 
for forty-two miles to High Falls, at which point the 
canal connects with the river. The Black River canal 



yS Oneida County 

system provided 78 miles of navigation and it was in- 
strumental in opening up a northern section of the state. 

Railroads. — After the canal enterprises came the 
development of railroads. The first railroad in the 
United States authorized to carry on a general trans- 
portation business in freight and passengers was the 
Mohawk and Hudson River railroad, extending from 
Albany to Schenectady, which was opened for traffic 
in October, 1831. In 1836 the Utica and Schenectady 
railroad was completed at a cost of $20,000 a mile. 

First Train West. — In June, 1839, the Utica and 
Syracuse railroad was completed at a cost of $700,000, 
and on June 27 the first train started out of L'tica 
westward. 

Black River. — The first section of the Utica and 
Black River railroad was opened in December, 1854, 
and it was gradually extended northward until in 
1871-72 it had reached Philadelphia, N. Y. There- 
after the Black River Company acquired control of 
other roads and made other extensions which con- 
nected the lines with the waters on the north. 

Rome. Watertown and Ogdensburg. — In No- 
vember, 1848, work was commenced in Rome on the 
Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg railroad, and May 
28, 185 1, the line was opened to Pierrepont Manor 
and it was extended northward in succeeding vears. 



Outline History. 79 

In 1886 this road leased all the roads of the Utica 
and Black River Railroad Company. In 1891 the 
New York Central and Hudson River Railroad 
Company, which had many years before consolidated 
the independent lines and formed the great thorough- 
fare from New York to Buffalo, leased these northern 
lines. 

The Southern Lines. — The Utica, Clinton and 
Binghamton railroad was chartered to construct a 
horse or steam road from Clinton through New 
Hartford to Utica and also to the villages of Whites- 
boro and New York Mills. In 1863 it opened a horse 
road in Genesee street between Utica and New 
Hartford. In 1866 a steam road was in operation 
from New Hartford to Clinton and the horse line had 
been extended to Whitesboro. Later the road was by 
successive stages pushed further south, improved and 
eventually passed into the control of other hands. 

Other Lines. — The Utica. Chenango and Susque- 
hanna Valley railroad was finished in 187 1. The New 
York and Oswego Midland road was opened in 1872. 
The Rome and Clinton road was opened in 1871. The 
New York, West Shore and Buffalo railway was 
opened from Weehawken to Syracuse October i. 1883. 

The Telegr.\ph. — Alert minds and progressive 
spirits reached out and brought into the Mohawk 



8o Oneida County 

valley and thence spread east and west the telegraph 
when it was yet believed by many to be a thing of 
chimerical realms. It had no friends in New York 
city. Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse about 1844 estab- 
lished a line between Washington and Baltimore. 

Men of This County Interested. — James D. 
Reid, who was known as the "Father of the Tele- 
graph," in his book, "The Telegraph in America," thus 
tells of the celerity w^ith which the men of Utica 
caught up the telegraph : 

"It was reserved to the inland cities of Rochester 
and Utica to take hold of the giant child and rear it to 
national greatness. In Utica as in Rochester there 
had always been a circle of solid, somewhat rough and 
practical men, always wideawake to enterprises of this 
character, a kind of frontier men, quick, impetuous, 
daring, ready for any new thing which had in it the 
necessity of pluck, the probability of success. Promi- 
nent among these, in 1845, were Theodore S. Faxton, 
John Butterfield and Hiram Greenman, the pioneers 
of old stage lines through central and eastern New 
York. They had all cracked their whips from the 
stage box, knew how to plant a good cowhide boot on 
the foot-board, and instinctively took to anything that 
had go in it. These men became at once interested 
in the telegraph. It was in their line. And so first 
Butterfield, who was a great traveler, and then Faxton 
found their way to Washington to watch the progress 



Outline History. 8i 

of the building and opening of the government line. 
They were not the men to buy pigs in bags, or to 
accept anything at second hand. So they character- 
istically footed it out from Washington to see Ezra 
Cornell at his work, and then cautiously and quietly 
watched the opening of the government offices. With 
the utmost care they made themselves familiar with all 
the details, and formed their judgment of the value of 
the invention by what they saw. They soon deter- 
mined to secure it for their own state and early in 
June, 1845, Mr. Butterfield had closed a contract with 
Mr. Kendall to erect a line of Morse telegraph, curi- 
ously enough having its termini at Springfield, Mass., 
and Buffalo. N. Y., via Albany and Utica. Spring- 
field was designed to be the connecting point with the 
New York and Boston Company, the absurdity of 
which was soon apparent. It was while Mr. Butter- 
field was returning from Washington on this errand 
that, on June 7th, he met on the Albany night boat 
Henry O'Reilly, of Rochester, to whom he imparted 
the nature of his project and so fired him with the idea 
of a similar mission that, in eight days, Mr. O'Reilly 
had in his possession the important contract which 
bears his name." 

Company Formed. — A company was formed in 
I^tica on July 16, 1845. with a capital stock of 
$200,000 to construct the Springfield. Albany and 
Buffalo Telegraph Line. 



82 Oneida County 

The trustees were Theodore S. Faxton, John 
Butterfield, Hiram Greenman. Henry Wells and 
Crawford Livingston. To interest the public in the 
enterprise a line was constructed in the fall of 1845 
from Utica to the State fair grounds, just outside the 
city, where the Masonic Home now stands. The first 
line in the state was from Albany to Utica. It was 
finished January 31, 1846. The line connecting Utica 
with Buffalo was next finished and after that the New 
York and Albany line was finished, the company 
having early seen that New York would make a better 
terminal than Springfield, Mass. That was the 
beginning. What the men who dwelt in the pass had 
done for liberty and for commerce, they also did for 
the telegraph. Who, viewing the magnitude of these 
enterprises with the far reaching influence of each, may 
not repeat with pride, "This is my own, my native 
land"? 



THE BEGINNINGS. 



First Permanent Settlements in the Towns — 
Incidents Connected with the Coming of the 
Pioneers — The Wilderness Turned into a 
Productive and Prosperous Country. 



SOON after the close of the Revolution a tide of 
emigration set in toward the wilderness of the 
west. There were in the armies of the patriots 
many New England soldiers who had been in the 
garrison in Fort Stanwix, and a brigade of Massa- 
chusetts troops under General Larned was with Gen. 
Benedict Arnold when he raised the siege of that 
fortress. They took back with them glowing tales of 
the beauty and fertility of the country they had visited, 
and those who had courage and hardihood determined 
on pushing out into the wilderness, though at that 
time the journey was tedious, wearying and full of 
dangers. 

White's Town. — The first ci these pioneers to 
make a permanent settlement in what is now Oneida 
county was Hugh White. He left Middletown, 
Connecticut, early in May, 1784, and arrived at what 
is now Whitestown June 5. His family consisted of 
four sons, a daughter and a daughter-in-law. They 



84 Oneida County 

came up the Hudson to Albany, crossed by land ta 
Schenectady, and then in a batteau made their way to 
the mouth of the Sauquoit creek. At Shoemakers, a 
few miles below Utica, they stopped and planted a field 
of corn on an abandoned farm from which the Indians 
and English had driven the owner and burned his 
buildings. At the proper time Judge White and his 
sons returned and tilled this, and in the autumn gath- 
ered a bountiful harvest. Judge White and his sons 
immediately set to work to clear land, which they 
planted, and near the eastern end of the village green 
in Whitesboro they erected their house. The site is- 
now designated by a fine granite monument which, 
marks the location of the home of the first permanent 
settler and his family in this county. 

Around this point centered for many years all the 
business attendant upon the erection of the new com- 
munity. Other New England families followed Judge 
White, and in 1785 Amos Wetmore and his sons and 
daughters were added to the settlement. Thomas R. 
Gold and Ozias Wilcox came in 1792, and in a few 
years Whitesboro had become a flourishing village in 
which resided, besides those mentioned above, the 
families of Jonas Piatt, George Doolittle, Reuben 
Wilcox, Arthur Breese, Enoch Story, Elizur Morley, 
Caleb Douglass, William G. Tracy and Gerrit Lansing. 

The first white child born in the settlement was 
Esther White, daughter of Daniel C. White. She was 



Outline History. 85 

born in 1785. The first white person to die in the 
settlement was Mrs. Blacksly. who was the aunt of 
Judge White and who resided with him. 

Judge White was a strong, forceful character, and 
he possessed the secret of getting along well with the 
Indians. He made them understand that he was their 
friend and he did not deceive them. Best of all. he put 
them upon their honor by placing in them implicit 
trust. It is related that an Indian named Han Yerry 
who resided at Oriskany came to Judge White's house 
one day and after conversation told the judge that to 
trust his friendship he wanted to take home with him 
the judge's little granddaughter and keep her over 
night. The fears of the child's mother arose in an 
instant, and it is not improbable that the grandfather 
had most disturbing suspicions ; but he well knew that 
he must betra}' no fears, and so he confided the little 
three-year-old to the Indian's care. The baby was 
returned the next afternoon by the chief and his wife, 
safe and w^ell. they had removed the garments she 
wore from home and had substituted a complete 
Indian dress, even to the tiny moccasins of deerskin. 

This incident cemented the friendship between the 
family of Judge White and the dusky people who sur- 
rounded his forest home. 

Deerfield. — In Deerfield a settlement was made in 
1773 by George J. Weaver, Capt. Mark Damoth and 



86 Oneida County. 

Christian Reall, and their houses were located near 
the present site of the Corners. They had started a 
clearing and were making progress in the forest when 
suddenly, in the summer of 1776, an Oneida Indian 
came to them and ga\ e the information that a party 
of Tories and Indians were approaching from the 
vicinity of West Canada creek. The settlers at once 
concealed their furniture in the woods, and placing the 
women and children in a crude wagon they hurried 
away to Little Stone Arabia, a fort near Schuyler. 
The Tories and Indians soon descended upon their poor 
homes and destroyed them. 

Afterward Mr. Damoth was captain of a company 
of rangers in the Revolution and received a bullet 
wound which shattered his right arm. Mr. Weaver 
was taken prisoner near Herkimer and was carried to 
Quebec, where for nine months he was confined in a 
dark cell. He was then taken to England, where he 
was kept a prisoner two years before he was exchanged 
and returned to his chosen home. In 1784, after war 
and pillage had passed its devastating hand over the 
Mohawk valley, these three old settlers were re-united 
and were again located upon their old farms, which 
they had cleared with so much toil, at Deerfield 
Corners. Other families who settled here about this 
time were Peter. Nicholas and George Weaver. George 
Damoth. Nicholas Harter and Philip Harter. 

The first bridge built over the Mohawk river 



Outline History. 87 

between Utica and Decrfiekl was erected in 1792 at 
"the fording place," probably east of Real's creek. In 
order to insure the presence of sufficient help to raise 
it, the work was done on Sunday. 

Rome. — The settlement of Rome is so closely 
identified with the history of Forts Stanwix and Bull 
and the other stockades at the "carrying place" that 
the reader is referred to the chapter on that subject 
for further details. Briefly it may be said in addition 
that it is the oldest point of interest in the county of 
Oneida, and from the earliest struggle between the 
French and English for supremacy to the evacuation 
of Fort Stanwix after the battle of Oriskany. it was a 
spot for which there was constant contention. It was 
the scene of military occupation, battle, treaty, massa- 
cre, siege, hardship, and finally victory, and its story 
properly set forth would form a chapter of unusual 
interest to close students of our early history. No 
braver garrison ever withstood the onslaught of a foe 
than that which defended Fort Stanwix, over which 
floated the first Stars and Stripes ever flung to the 
breeze in time of battle. 

The permanent settlement of Rome commenced in 
1784. when Jedediah Phelps erected a small foundry 
on Wood creek. He moved the next year to the site 
of Fort Stanwix. and 1785-6 five log houses were 
erected there. In 1795 the first grist mill was built, 



88 Oneida County 

and in 1799 a printing office was established and the 
Columbian Gazette was started as a weekly paper by 
Thomas Walker. 

It was at Rome, July 4, 18 17, that the first shovelful 
of earth was turned in the construction of the Erie 
canal ; and it was at Rome within the memory of many 
men now living that the first sleeping car ever con- 
structed in the United States was built. 

The town of Rome was formed March 4, 1796. 
Thirty-four years before, on August 28, 1762, the first 
white child born in this county saw the light of day at 
Fort Stanwix. His name was John Roof, and his 
father and mother resided in a log hut near the fort. 

Rome was incorporated as a city by an act passed 
February 23, 1870. 

Westmoreland. — In several respects the settlement 
of Westmoreland is among the most interesting of the 
events connected with the history of our county. A 
considerable portion of this township, lying in the 
southwestern center and west of the Line of Property, 
was granted to "James Dean of Connecticut directly 
from the Oneida Indians, and this grant was confirmed 
by the state. Mr. Dean when a young man was a 
missionary to the Indians and became proficient in their 
language. He afterwards entered Dartmouth College 
and was a member of the first class graduating there- 
from. In 1774 the Continental Congress sent him 



Outline History. 89 

among the Indians to aid in influencing them to side 
with the colonists, and while acting in this capacity he 
was arrested by the British as a spy and taken to 
Quebec. His cool self-possession enabled him to pass 
their examination and he was liberated. Wlicn the 
Revolution commenced he was appointed to the rank 
of major and was sent to Fort Stanwix and Oneida 
Castle to act as interpreter and Indian agent. His 
services were most valuable, for through his influence, 
added to that of Samuel Kirkland, the great body of 
the Oneida tribe was induced to remain neutral. At 
the close of the war the Oneidas gave Mr. Dean two 
square miles of land on the west side of Wood creek 
in the present town of Vienna, but after starting a 
clearing and remaining upon it a year, he pointed out to 
the Oneidas that it was an unfit place to commence a set- 
tlement as it was too low and marshy, and the Indians 
agreed that he might change the location to any point 
on the west side of the Line of Property between the 
Oriskany and Wood creeks. He selected the land 
(Dean's Patent in Westmoreland) in 1785, located 
upon it in February, 1786. and after constructing a log 
house returned to Connecticut and married Miss Lydia 
Camp on October 11. Their wedding journey was 
made on horseback to their future home and they 
immediately took up the stern realities of pioneer life. 
Other families came in the same fall or following 
winter. Mr. Dean and his wife were in the front rank 



90 Oneida County 

of those strong characters who reclaimed this county 
from the wilderness. 

Other considerable portions of this township were 
lands that had been patented to General Washington 
and Governor Clinton, and there are a number of deeds 
on record that were executed by these two notable 
figures in our early history. Several deeds of this 
nature were executed in 1797-8-9. 

In 1787 or 1788 Mr. Dean built the first saw and 
grist mill. The millstones were cut from a large rock 
found near Lairdsville. Previous to the building of 
this mill, the settlers had to go to German Flatts for 
their milling, and as horses were nearly out of the 
question from their cost and the difficulty of keeping 
them in the woods, the wheat or corn was carried on 
the back of the settler the long distance, and the meal 
or flour was brought home in the same manner. 

In the little cemetery at Lairdsville lies another of 
those patriots of the Revolution. Phineas Bell, who was 
among those who were so long confined by the British 
in the notorious Sugar House prison in New York. 
Capt. Neahmiah Jones, James Crittenden. Roderick 
Morrison and John Vaughn were among other Revo- 
lutionary patriots who are buried in this town. 

KiRKLAND. — The settlement in the town of Kirk- 
land was begun by eight families in March, 1787. A 
stone slab in the park in the village of Clinton marks 



Outline History. 91 

the beginning of this settlement and contains the 
following inscription : 

Moses Foot, Esq., in company with seven 
other families commenced the settlement of 
this village March 3, 1787. 

Nine Miles to Utica. 

Moses Foot, 
James Bronson. 
Luther Foot, 
Barnabas Pond, 
LuDiM Blodgett, 
Levi Sherman. 

The i)lace received the name of Clinton from George 
Clinton, who was then governor of the state. This 
settlement appears to have been a very happy and pros- 
perous one, barring the vicissitudes that would seem 
almost insurmountable to people of the present time, 
but which to our hardy forefathers were incidental 
and by no means discouraging. 

It is probable that the marriage of the first white 
couple in Oneida county took place in Clinton early in 
1788. and was that <if Roger Lcvcrett and Miss Eliza- 
beth Cheesbrough. 

The following winter, 1789, the little settlement came 
near to the door of starvation, for the crops had par- 
tially failed. In the last extremity, a party went to 
Fort Plain and from Isaac Paris, farmer and miller. 



92 Oneida County 

obtained a supply of food, which was sent up the 
Mohawk to the mouth of the Oriskany creek and thence 
to Chnton on canoes. The supphes were paid for the 
following year in ginseng, which even then was a 
marketable commodity in great demand in the eastern 
countries visited by the plague. 

Steuben. — The name of this town comes from 
Frederick William Augustus, Baron Steuben, to whom 
in 1786 was given a patent of 16,000 acres of land by 
the State of New York for his services in the Revo- 
lutionary war. The township originally embraced the 
town of Rome and intermediate territory. The sum- 
mers were passed by Baron Steuben on his grant, and 
the winters he spent in New York. At the time of his 
death, in 1794, about twenty families had homes on 
his patent, having leased land from the owner. He had 
made plans for an imposing mansion and a grand 
estate, but this did not materialize owing to his death. 
He never married, but an adopted son. Col. Walker, 
carried out the baron's wishes as to his burial and the 
remains of the general were finally interred in the 
center of a five-acre tract of forest. The First Baptist 
Society of Steuben received a deed of fifty acres of land 
on condition that the five acres should be fenced and 
kept in a state of nature. The grave was for some time 
marked by a marble slab, but in 1872 an imposing 
monument was erected by contributions that came 
mostlv from German citizens all over the countrv. 










BARON STEUBEN MONUMENT. 



Outline History. 93 

New Hartford. — In March, 1788, Col. Jedediah 
Sanger bought 1,000 acres of land lying on both sides 
the Sanquoit creek in what is now the village of New 
Hartford, paying therefore fifty cents per acre. He 
sold all that part of the purchase lying on the east side 
of the creek to Joseph Higbee the same year. The next 
year Mr. Sanger moved his family to the tract and 
erected a saw mill and grist mill. The settlement grew 
rapidly from that time. Owing to the superior water 
power the place possessed, more business was transacted 
in New Hartford than in Utica before tlie opening of 
the Krie canal, and it was one of the chief stopping 
places on the Seneca turnpike. 

Bridgewater. — This section of the county was 
settled quite early, but the exact date is in some dispute. 
According to one account, the first settlers were Joseph 
Farwell and Ephraim and Nathan Waldo, who came 
in 1789. Others have claimed that the \^'aldo families 
did not arrive until 1793, but that Jesse and Joel Ives, 
cousins, started a clearing in 1789, and that in 1790 
they returned and erected the first house in the town. 
In the same spring Thomas Brown located on the site 
of Bridgewater village and became the first actual 
settler of the village. .\ saw mill was built in 1790 
or 1791 by Major Farwell, and a grist mill the next 
year. The first school was opened in 1797, and a Con- 
gregational church society was organized the year 
following. When the Cherry Valley turnpike was 



94 Oneida County 

opened in 1810, Bridge water became an important 
center. 

Paris. — The first settlement in the town of Paris 
was upon what is known as Paris Hill and was com- 
menced by Col. Rice in March, 1789. Benjamin 
Barnes and his son and John Humaston arrived about 
three weeks later. One of the oldest churches in the 
county is here located. It is the Congregational church 
and was formed by the noted Rev. Jonathan Edwards 
in 1 79 1. It then consisted of five members. In 1796 a 
meeting was held in an ox-cart at which it was deter- 
mined to start a Protestant Episcopal church. On 
February 13, 1797, the society was formed at a meeting 
held in the dwelling of Selah Seymour. The following 
Sunday services were commenced, Eli Blakeslee read- 
ing the service and Selah Seymour reading a sermon. 
Thus was commenced St. Paul's Episcopal church, the 
first of that faith in the State of New York west of 
Johnstown. Since that date no Sunday has passed 
upon which the service has not been read in that village. 
The first rector was Rev. Robert Griffith Wetmore. 
The present one is Rev. J. B. Wicks, whose family is 
among the old residents of the town. 

Western. — The town of Western contains more 
beautiful scenes than any other portion of Oneida 
county, but because it is not touched by railroads and 
has no large villages it is less known than the other 




GEN. WM. FLOYD'S MONUMENT, 
Westernville, N. Y. 



Outline History. 95 

sections. The Mohawk river runs through the center 
of this township and throughout its whole course there 
is a succession of picturesque landscapes. The town 
was first settled in 1789 by Asa Beck with and his four 
sons. Henry Wager followed later, the same year. In 
the fall of 1789 the first bridge ever built across the 
Mohawk river was constructed wholly of logs in this 
settlement. Though it was rough and unsightly it 
stood the buffetings of the waters for over thirty years. 
In the cemetery at Westernville is the grave of Gen. 
William Floyd, one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence. He remoxed to W^estern in 1803 and 
died in 182 1. When General Floyd came to this county 
he brought with him a number of slaves wliich he held 
until the law went into effect which abolished slavery 
in this state. He maintained his establishment in an 
ideal manner and his slaves were greatly attached 
to him. 

During recent years the old Floyd mansion was 
occupied summers by Rear Admiral Montgomery 
Si card, and here on September 14. 1900, occurred the 
death of that famous sea captain. So in the little 
cemetery in that village rest side by side the remains 
of two men whose names have been written down in 
imperishable history. 

Floyd. — This township was named after Gen. 
William Floyd, of Western, who owned a large tract 



96 Oneida County 

of land within its limits. The first settler was Capt, 
Benjamin Pike, who took up a farm in 1790. Stephen 
Moulton, Jr., who was a musician in the Revolutionary 
army, took up a farm in Floyd the same year. He lived 
to be ninety-one years old and is buried in the town 
where he resided so long. His father, Stephen 
Moulton, and four other sons, Solomon, Joseph, Ben- 
jamin and Ebenezer, came into Floyd before 1795. 
This was a famous Revolutionary family and all are 
understood to have been in the patriot army. Captain 
Moulton, the elder, was a prisoner at Fort Washington, 
and Solomon was captured by the British on Long 
Island and confined in the "Sugar House" at New 
York, that notorious den of suffering. 

The town of Floyd was the residence for some 
time of Israel Denio, the father of Judge Hiram 
Denio. Israel Denio was a blacksmith. He married 
Esther Robbins, daughter of a Floyd pioneer, in 
1795 and settled on a farm. There a daughter 
was born in 1796. The next year Mr. Denio 
moved to Wright Settlement in the town of Rome, and 
commenced work at his trade. His son Hiram, who 
became one of the most distinguished jurists New York 
state ever knew, was born in the town of Rome in 
May, 1799. 

Lee. — This was a section of country "away up on 
the Mohawk river beyond Fort Stanwix, inhabited by 
bears, Indians and wolves" until 1790, when Esek 



Outline History. 97 

Sheldon and his sons, Stephen, Reuben and Amasa, 
commenced a settlement near the present site of Delta. 
David Smith and his two sons followed very soon, and 
probably in the year 1791 the Smiths built a saw mill. 
This was subsequently sold to Judge Prosper Rudd and 
he added a flouring- mill and later a carding mill. The 
upper Mohawk furnishes excellent water power along 
its whole course in this town, and saw and grist mills 
sprung up as rapidly as the inhabitants who came 
pouring in after 1791 needed them. The people who 
came to Lee were mostly from Massachusetts and 
Connecticut and were believers in education. They 
had a school as early as 1798, taught by a young sur- 
veyor, and it is probable that in this towai was estab- 
lished the first library in the county. It was called the 
Union Library of Delta and Western. This did good 
service until succeeded by the Harmony Library Asso- 
ciation at Lee Center, which was organized in March, 
1820. 

Sangerfield. — The territory of which this town is 
comprised was purchased (^f the state by Michael 
Meyers, Jedcdiah Sanger and John J. Morgan in 1790. 
The price was three shillings and three pence per acre. 
The first settler was Zerah Phelps, who came from 
Massachusetts in the fall of 1791. The following 
March Minierva Hale and wife and Nathan Gurney 
and \\\ie and infant moved into Sangerfield from New 
Hartford, where they had resided one or two years. 



98 Oneida Comity 

The first white child born in the town was a daughter 
to Mr. and Mrs. Zerah Phelps, in July, 1792. In 
January, 1793, Seneca Hale, a son, was born to Mr. 
and Mrs. Minierva Hale. The first marriage was 
October 30, 1793, and was that of Sylvanus Dyer and 
Hannah Norton. 

Utica. — The location of the city which now com- 
prises the township of Utica seems to have been deter- 
mined from a ford across the Mohawk river at some 
point between the present Genesee street and Park 
avenue crossings. In 1758 a fort was erected on the 
south bank near this ford and called Fort Schuyler. 
There was never any expectation that at this point 
there would be built a city, as it was for a number of 
years merely a landing place for the flourishing towns 
of New Hartford and Whitestown. But in 1790 John 
Post, who had been for some years engaged as a trader 
in Schenectady, saw the advantages of having a store 
at the fording place, and so located near Fort Schuyler. 
Four families lived here then, and possibly one or two 
more. They were Uriah Alverson, John Cunningham, 
Jacob Christman and the widow Damuth, Post soon 
had an extensive trade with the Indians and early 
settlers. He supplied them with rum, powder, shot, 
cloth and ornaments, and purchased of them furs, skins 
and ginseng. He built up a large business for that 
period, but in the height of his prosperity, 1807. a fire 



Outline History. 99 

destroyed his stores and goods and most of his money. 
In the dedine of Hfe, he could not recover, and in 1830 
he died in penury and want. 

In 1794 the place had reached a point where it 
needed a hotel, and Moses Bagg, then a blacksmith, 
built a log house which he opened for the accommo- 
dation of travelers. Since that time Bagg's Hotel has 
been a landmark in this city. 

Utica was incorporated as a village in 1798 and then 
took the name that has since become so famous. In 
18 1 7 it was erected as a town separate from Whites- 
town. February 13, 1832. it was incorporated as a 
city by an act of the legislature. Its present population 
is not far from 70,000. 

The census of 1900 gave 56.383 inhabitants and it is 
growing at the rate of about 1,200 per year. 

The oldest religious society in Utica is that of Trinity 
Episcopal parish. It was practically formed by the 
Rev. Philander Chase in 1798, but it was not until 
May, 1803, that a movement was started to erect a 
church. The first Roman Catholic services held in the 
city were conducted in a building on John street in 
18 19, and in 1821 the first church occupied by the St. 
John's congregation was opened. 

Utica was the home of the first hospital for the 
insane in the state. It was authorized by the legislature 
of 1836. the site was purchased in 1837, and it was 



100 Oneida County 

opened for the reception of patients on January i6, 
1843. July 14' 1857, the main building burned : it was 
then rebuilt upon a much more extensive plan than first 
contemplated. Its development has steadily continued. 

Remsen. — Barnabas Mitchell of Connecticut was 
the first settler in the town of Remsen, and he located 
there in 1792. It was two years before other families 
came in. They were John Bunner. Nathaniel Rock- 
wood, Bettis Leclere, Perez Farr and Jonah Dayton, 
In the year 1808 the first Welsh settlers came. They 
were David Mound, John James, Griffith I. Jones, John 
Owens and Hugh Hug'hes. From the good reports 
these families sent back to Wales grew the fame of the 
Oneida country across the ocean, with the result that 
very large numbers of Welsh soon made their way 
thither. 

Verona. — George x\. Smith was the first settler in 
Verona. He located near where Oneida creek empties 
into the lake, on January i, 1792, and had the section 
all to himself until 1796, when Asabel Jackson moved 
from Massachusetts and located near him. 

Annsville. — The first settler in the township of 
Annsville was John W. Bloomfield, who came from 
New Jersey in April, 1793. He purchased a large tract 
of land upon which Taberg and its iron industries were 
afterward located. On account of the excellent water 
power furnished by Fish creek and its tributaries, tin's 



Outline History. lOl 

town was settled quite rapidly. It is evident that it has 
been a favored locality for ages, for frequently the plow 
or a well digger have turned from the deep soil evi- 
dences of an early occupation by an unknown race. In 
1850 a freshet worked away the banks at the junction 
of Fish and Furnace creeks and left exposed several 
large earthen vessels, hearths, fire-places and other 
evidences of prehistoric inhabitants. Stone hatchets 
and flint arrowheads have been found in considerable 
quantities. 

Augusta. — The land in the town of Augusta was 
occupied by the Oneidas and by them was given to the 
Tuscaroras and Stockbridge tribe, and there were 
Indian wigwams upon some of the land when the first 

white settlers arrived. Gunn is believed to have 

been the first white inhabitant, in 1793. Benjamin 
Warren, David Morton and John Alden came about 
the same time. Ichabod Stafford and Joseph and 
Abraham Forbes moved in that same summer. Francis 
O'Toole located in 1794 near a spring, water from 
which the Indians boiled for salt. He occupied the 
farm till his death in 1842. aged 90 years. Among 
those who came to Augusta in 1794 was Amos Parker, 
the tallest man in the American army of the Revolu- 
tion. Col. Thomas Cassety was another noted figure. 
He was born in Detroit, and for firing at an English 
officer who was sent to arrest his father, Thomas was 



I02 Oneida County 

in danger and took refuge among the western Indians. 
He came to Oriskany Falls in 1794 and built the first 
grist and saw mills there about that time. For many 
years the place was called "Cassety Hollow." 

Marcy. — The first settlers in the town of Marcy 
were John Wilson, who came in the spring of 1793, 
James Wilson, who arrived in 1794, and Isaac and 
Joseph Wilson, who came a few months afterwards. 
They were all sons of Thomas Wilson, an Irish emi- 
grant who had settled in Connecticut, and each 
brought with him a numerous family of children. 

Marshall. — In the territory now designated by the 
name of Marshall was located the reservation set apart 
for the Brothertown Indians, those few remnants of 
the once powerful New England tribes who were wel- 
comed and given homes by the ever hospitable and 
generous Oneidas. 

The first white settler in the town is believed to have 
been David Barton, who came from Connecticut in 
1793- 

Trenton. — Gerrit Boon, agent for the Holland 
Land Company, a native of Holland, was the first 
settler in the town of Trenton, and he "drove his 
stakes" in 1793. The place was first named Olden- 
barneveld. but upon the erection of the township in 
1797 the name it now bears was taken. This township 



Outline History. 103 

became famous for its wonderful falls on the West 
Canada creek, and during the middle half of the last 
century these falls became a fashionable resort and 
were visited by thousands every year. In the summer, 
at the old Moore's Hotel, the wealthy, fashionable and 
literary circles of the land were represented, and not 
until hundreds of "summer resorts" sprung into promi- 
nence did Trenton gorge lose its fashionable charm. 
The falls now furnish electricity for Utica, and the 
magnificent plant there installed is well worth a careful 
inspection. The beauty of the falls has not been 
destroyed by the erection of the electric plant. 

Camden. — A saw mill was built near where the 
village of Camden is now located in 1794 or 1795 by 
Jesse Curtiss, but it is not understood that Curtiss 
became a permanent resident of the locality. In 1797 
Judge Henry Williams came into that neighborhood 
and to him is probably due the honor of having been 
the first pioneer. Other families came very soon, and 
as early as the 19th of February, 1798, a Congrega- 
tional church society was formed. The first deaths 
recorded in this settlement were those of Mrs. Bacon 
and her child, who were drowned while crossing Mad 
river in 1799. To Judge W^illiams and his wife was 
born in 1798 a daughter, who was the first white child 
born in the town. To Noah Tuttle and wife was born a 
son, Daniel, later in the same year. The township early 
became a manufacturing center because of its excellent 



I04 Oneida County 

water power. Numerous saw mills were located upon 
its streams and in many of the farmhouses erected 
early in the century and now in good preservation may 
be found an abundance of clear pine lumber that would 
now be worth fancy prices. Probably better than any 
other village of the county Camden has been successful 
in retaining its manufacturing industries. 

Vernon. — In the territory occupied by this town 
was located Kan-on-wa-lo-hule, the principal village of 
the Oneida nation of Indians, and as the Oneidas held 
these lands until 1797 the vicinity was late in its settle- 
ment. Josiah Bushnell settled in the town in 1794. A 
large number of Connecticut and New Hampshire 
people came to Vernon in 1798 and it soon became a 
populous community for the time. .\s a rule they were 
generally well-to-do people and they turned the wilder- 
ness into a splendid farming country with little 
difficulty. 

BooNViLLE. — Permanent settlements began in this 
township in the spring of 1795 upon land sold by Mr. 
Boon, the agent for the Holland Land Company, 
located at Trenton. The first settler was .\ndrew 
Edmunds. Several families followed the next 
spring, and that year the land company opened a store 
on the site of the village of Boonville. The excellent 
water power found in this locality very early brought 
settlers and mills and it was not many years after first 
settlement before it became a thriving place. 



Outline History. 105 

Florence. — There was no settlement in this town 
"till 1801. William Henderson of New York had 
purchased township No. 4 of Scriba Patent and in 
order to promote settlement on his tract offered a 
bonus of fifty acres of land each to persons who would 
settle there. Amos Woodworth, John Spinning and 

Taylor look advantage of the offer. By 1805 

•enough settlers had started homes to make it a township 
by itself and it was set off from Camden. 

In the village of Florence, Gerrit Smith, the famous 
abolitionist of Peterboro. Madison county, owned con- 
siderable property in 1822. He erected a blacksmith 
shop and through his influence a number of mechanics 
and business men were induced to make this place their 
home. At one time the village was the site of several 
large tanneries and for years the manufacture of fine 
leather brought the place into considerable prominence. 

FoRESTPORT. — This township has less of history than 
any other division of the county. It is located on the 
very edge of the Adirondack region and until 1869 was 
a part of Remsen. In 1849-50 the state dam was 
erected to create a feeder for the Black River canal, and 
this stimulated a settlement at that point. It soon 
became a lumbering center and this industry has con- 
tinued until the present time. Some of the largest mills 
ever erected in the state have here been located, and 
also an immense tannery. 

The Dates in Order. — The following table gives 



lo6 Oneida County 

the chronological order of the first permanent settle- 
ment in the towns : 

Whitestown 1 784 

Deerfield 1784 

Rome 1784 

Westmoreland 1786 

Kirkland 1787 

Steuben 1787 

New Hartford 1788 

Bridgewater 1 789 

Paris 1789 

Western 1789 

Floyd 1 790 

Lee 1790 

Utica 1 790 

Sangerfield 1791 

Remsen 1 792 

Verona 1792 

Annsville 1793 

Augusta 1793 

Marcy I793 

Marshall 1793 

Trenton I793 

Camden I794 

Vernon i 794 

Boonville 1795 

Florence 1801 

Forestport 1850 



THE OPENING OF INDUSTRY. 



Cotton Mills and Their Growth — Power Looms 
— Woolen Mills — Making Cloth — Importa- 
tion OF Sheep — Use of Iron Ores — Furnaces — 
Glass Manufacture — Dairy Products — The 
First Cheese Factory — Mineral Waters. 



THE first cotton mill erected in the State of New 
York was the Oneida Factory, and it was estab- 
lished in 1809 on a site not far from the canal in 
Yorkville. with the Oriskany creek for its power. It 
was for the production of cotton yarn only, and its 
projectors were Dr. Seth Capron, Thomas R. Gold, 
Theodore Sill, Newton Mann and others. Very soon 
after this mill was started. Benjamin S. Walcott was 
induced to emigrate from Rhode Island, where he had 
obtained knowledge of the cotton industry, and he was 
soon made the agent for the mill here. The \-arn spun 
was sent out to the houses of farmers to be woven on 
hand looms into a coarse cloth about three-fourths of a 
yard wide. Five or six cents a yard in barter was 
paid for the weaving. The cotton came to the mill in 
the seed and it was given out in bags to the country 
people to free from this seed and prepare for the cards. 
This was also paid for in barter, and from three to- 



io8 Oneida County 

four cents per pound was considered to be a fair price 
for the service. 

Power Loom. — The second factory was the one at 
Capron, which soon followed and was under nearly 
the same management. It was at the Capron mill, 
probably about 1812, that the first power loom for 
weaving cotton was erected in this state. This loom 
was built by a mechanic who had been sent to Rhode 
Island to secure the plans, and it is understood that he 
had to obtain his knowledge surreptitiously. 

About this time (1812) Mr. Walcott commenced 
the spinning of yarn in a wooden building known as 
the Burrstone (buhr-stone) mill for grinding grain, 
located at the site of the upper mill at New York Mills. 
A large building was soon constructed in which were 
placed a number of hand looms, as the power loom had 
not given satisfaction, and expert weavers were intro- 
duced from England and Scotland. Then the product 
commenced to improve, and it has kept in the fore-front 
ever since, leading all the cotton manufactures of the 
country in many lines, and making the names of Utica 
and New York Mills known whercA'er cotton cloth was 
used. At the present time many millions of dollars are 
invested in the cotton industry in this county, and 
thousands of people are constantly employed in the 
different branches of the work. Not only are sheetings, 
shirting and muslins made here, but also all the finer 



Outline History. lo^ 

grades of corduroy, denims, batistes, plush and the finer 
fabrics, as well as great quantities of cotton yarn. 

Within the last few years the knit goods industry 
has also here sprung into prominence, and I'tica has 
now become a center for the making of hne underwear, 
hosiery, etc. 

In 1824 Benjamin Walcott, as agent for Benjamin 
Marshall of New York, erected the first of the New 
York ]\Iills for the manufacture of fine shirtings, and 
this was the first attempt made in this country at the 
producing of yarns of the finer grades. The name New 
York Mills was assumed in 1840. and in 1856 the firm 
of Walcott & Campbell was established. 

The Utica Steam Cotton Mills were incorporated in 
1847; the Mohawk Valley Cotton Mills in 1880: the 
Skenandoa Cotton Company in 1881. 

WooLEX. — The tirst woolen factory in the state was. 
erected at Oriskany and was probably started in the 
year 1809. Its projector was Dr. Seth Capron. men- 
tioned above. It was necessary to bring the spindles 
and some of the other parts of the machinery from 
England, at that time a slow and tedious process. 

W^illiam Goss, William Graham and Sharp were 

induced to come from Scotland and England as 
experts. Several years later James Graham, son oi the 
Graham above named, put into operation in this milt 
the first power loom for weaving woolen yarns ever 



no Oneida County 

used in this country, and James Goss performed in tliat 
factory the first work by machinery in the manufacture 
of wool ever done in the United States. 

Merino Sheep. — A company was formed about 
the same time under the style of the Mount Merino 
Association, and it imported the first Merino sheep 
ever kept in this state. Some of them were imported 
from Spain, and a single ram, known as Don Carlos, 
cost $ 1,000 — a sum that was considered at that time 
as fabulous. These sheep were kept on a farm on the 
highlands on the north side of the Mohawk river, 
directly opposite Oriskany. 

The Clinton Woolen Manufacturing Compau}- coni- 
menced the manufacture of cloth in 18 10. but after the 
war of 18 1 2 this factory was idle for a few years and 
was then turned into a cotton manufactory. 

Another early mill was that of the Friendly Woolen 
Company, established in Sauquoit by Quakers in 1812. 
They spun the yarn at the mill and let it out to farmers 
to weave at home, as was the custom of other mills 
started about this time. This mill was in operation 
about twenty years. 

The Empire Woolen Mills in Clayville were first 
operated in 1844. Henry Clay, the illustrious states- 
man, came to that village and spoke at a meeting in the 
factory before it was completed — hence the name of 



Outline History. in 

Clayville. Originally the place was known as Paris 
Furnace. 

The Utica Steam Woolen Mills w-ere established in 
1846, and the Globe Woolen Mills in 1847. The last 
named is the only woolen mill now in operation in the 
county engaged in the manufacture of cloths. Its 
products are known wherever good materials are 
demanded. 

Irox. — The compilers of this book have been unable 
to ascertain the year in which use was first made of the 
extensive iron ore beds in this county. Not long after 
the cultivation of fields was commenced, the settlers 
discovered traces of iron ore, for they often turned it 
up with the plow. Probably before the year 1800 pig 
iron was made at Walesville and Taberg in this county, 
and at Constantia in Oswego county. In 1800 a blast 
furnace known as Westmoreland Furnace was put in 
operation at Hecla. After testing the ore from Judge 
Dean's farm near there, and not succeeding well with 
it, they procured an excellent quality of ore from 
Vernon and conducted an extensive business for some 
years. 

In 1 80 1 a forge was erected at Forge Hollow, 
between Deansville and Waterville. and the manufac- 
ture of iron was commenced. Daniel Hanchett. Ward 
\\'hite and John and Thomas Winslow carried on the 
work here for a number of vears. but thev finallv 



112 Oneida County 

ceased to operate on the ore and made their castings out 
of scrap iron. 

Where the village of Clayville now stands was 
located in 1800-1 what was known as the Paris Fur- 
nace, which is understood to have cast some plows and 
other farm utensils, but its chief products were scythes 
and hoes. Previous to this time scythes had been 
beaten out upon the anvils in a shop in Clinton. In 
after years the Sauquoit valley became famous as a 
site for the manufacture of farming utensils and 
several factories were engaged in the work. 

In 1809 the Oneida Iron and Glass Manufacturing 
Company was organized, and in 181 1 it commenced 
operations on an extensive scale at Taberg. During 
the war of 18 12, shot for the United States government 
were made at this furnace. Taberg was then connected 
with Rome by a plank road over which a great deal of 
teaming was carried on. The products of the furnace 
were shipped east from Rome by the Mohawk, which 
was then the chief highway to the eastern cities and 
ports. Furnace Creek at Taberg became the seat of 
several extensive furnaces, and for years the place was 
a very active one in a business sense. Pig iron of a 
very fine quality, as well as hollow ware, was made at 
Taberg for thirty or forty years. The industry has 
now entirely disappeared from that section. 

Franklin Iron Works were established in 1852 and 
for a considerable period of years did an extensive 



Outline History. 113 

business. I'^rcmi (ire mined at Clinton crude iron is 
obtained. 

The Kirkland h'urnace Company was organized in 
1850: a new company formed in 1852 broug-ht more 
capital to the project and soon a great blast furnace 
was in operation. The output at one time was enor- 
mous. This plant has now Ijeen idle many years. 

From about 1850 to 1870 was a period af active 
development and in almost every favorable locality 
foundries for the manufacture of farming and house- 
hold utensils were erected. They centered along the 
streams furnishing water power, like the Oriskany, 
Sauquoit and Fish creeks and their tributaries. By 
J 860 almost every town in the county had its foundry. 
Very mam- of these have disappeared since the com- 
bination of manufacturing plants has made it impos- 
sible for the smaller concerns to compete with those 
capitalized on a larger scale. 

Stove Manufacturing. — In 1842 the firm of 
Bailey, Wheeler & Co. purchased and enlarged a small 
foundry in Utica and were soon engaged in the 
extensive manufacture of stoves. This afterwards 
became the Russell Wheeler stove manufactory and its 
business was extensive. At this foundry was made the 
first coal cooking stove cast west of Albany. The 
^jckham stove manufactory came later and also grew 
'to be a large concern. 



114 Oneida County 

But manufactures change as new demands arise, and 
now Utica is a center for the making of hot air furnaces 
which have largely taken the place of stoves. Steam 
and hot water apparatus, iron pipe, spring tooth 
harrows, rifles, spring beds, stationary engines, etc., 
now form the principal articles of metal manufactured 
in the city of Utica. 

The city of Rome has become one of the best known 
metal manufacturing towns in the country. The Rome 
Iron Works Company was organized in 1866. In 1878 
the manufacture of brass was taken up by this company, 
and nine years later it commenced the manufacture of 
copper. In 189 1 the name of the company was changed 
to the Rome Brass and Copper Company. 

The Rome Merchant Iron Mill was established in 
1870. Its products are varied and amount to about 
12,000 tons annually. 

The New York Locomotive Works were first oper- 
ated in Rome in 1881 and the product was extensive 
until 1892. 

Manufactories for the making of bath tubs, tea- 
kettles, tanks, copper utensils, iron bedsteads, wire and 
many other commodities are now located in Rome. 

Glass. — In the western towns of this county there 
exist extensive plains of sand and it is of a quality 
especially valuable in the manufacture of glass. In 
1845 DeWitt C. Stebbins started a glass manufactory 



Outline History. 115 

at Durhamville, in the town of Verona. This was 
later known as the Fox manufactory. It flourished for 
a number of years, but after a time the combination of 
interests under the general term of trusts brought 
about a condition that compelled the shutting down of 
these works. There was a smaller factory at Durham- 
ville which was also closed, as well as the extensive 
works at Cleveland in Oswego county. 

Dairy Products. — As the farms were cleared up, 
this county gradually took its place as one of the most 
extensive butter and cheese producing sections of the 
state. The dairy interests were stronger in the north- 
ern and northwestern towns than south of the Mohawk 
A-alley, where considerable attention was given to the 
production of hops. 

First Cheese Factory. — And right here comes one 
of the most interesting facts that can be told in connec- 
tion with the development of the dairy industry of the 
United States : Jesse Williams, a grandson of one of 
the four Williams brothers who were in Fort Stanwix 
at the time of the siege of that fortress, inherited from 
his father a farm two miles north of Ridge Mills in 
the town of Rome. In 1834 he commenced the manu- 
facture of cheese. Other farmers took up the plan 
which Air. W'ilHams and his wife were following, and 
in a few vears it became the rule for each farmer to not 



ii6 Oneida County 

only make his own cheese, but also some to sell. Mr„ 
Williams each year contracted his entire output before 
the season opened. In 1850 he also contracted for the 
sale of the cheese made by his son George on the 
adjoining farm, but as some doubt arose as to whether 
the two lots, made at different places, would be alike 
in quality, the idea came to them to combine the milk 
and make it all at one place so there might be no doubt 
as to uniformity. This plan worked so well that Mr. 
Williams and his son conceived the plan of combining 
several dairies, and other farmers were approached on 
the subject. The neighboring dairymen fell in with the 
idea, and as the Williams cheese were noted for their 
excellent quality, Mr. Williams and his son took the 
initiative. A building was erected and on May 10, 
1 85 1, the milk was received for the first time at the 
Williams cheese factory — the first factory ever opened 
for the manufacture of cheese in the United States. 

In January, 1864, the Messrs. Williams and Gen. 
R. U. Sherman of New Hartford were instrumental in 
forming the Utica Dairy Board of Trade, and Jesse 
Williams was its first president. This rapidly took its 
place in the industrial features of the country and in a 
short time Utica became the largest cheese market in 
the world. 

Mineral Waters. — Scattered all about this county 
are splendid mineral springs. The most famous were 



Outline History. 117 

the ones that came to be known as Verona Springs. 
These waters were first brought to notice in 1830. and 
the water was known far and wide as an excellent 
remedy for scrofulous troul)lcs. In 1850 a water cure 
was established there by Dr. Seymour Curtiss, and it 
became a resort at which as many as two hundred 
patients were often gathered. 

Water from springs at Franklin Iron Works, Clinton 
and Boon\ille is now bottled extensively and sent into 
the large cities for sale. 



BUILDING OF EDUCATION. 



Early Jesuit Missions — Kirkland and His \\'ork 
Among the Indians — He Establishes Hamilton 
College — First Schools and Hardships Con- 
nected WITH Them — Academies and Special 
Schools. 



THE history of education in Oneida county ante- 
dates the first permanent settlement by over one 
hundred years, because the history of education 
commences with the labors of the early missionaries. 

Early Jesuit Mission. — The first of these 
missionaries were the Jesuits from the French 
settlements in Canada. Father Jacques Bruyas 
established a Jesuit mission at Oneida in Septem- 
ber, 1667, and named it St. Francis Xavier. 
For twenty-five years previous to that time the meni- 
bers of this order had been laboring among the Iro- 
quois, but their missions were mainly among the 
Onondagas. From 1671 to 1696 Father Millet was 
stationed at Oneida. The strife between the French 
and the English for the possession of the new country 
was fatal to the progress of their work. In 1700 the 
Jesuit mission commenced to decline. The mission- 
aries and the traders from the French country were 
ordered out of the domains of the Iroquois confederacy. 



Outline History. 1 19 

Thereafter several Protestant missionaries worked 
among the Oneidas with various degrees of success. 
Several of the Oneida youths were educated in a mis- 
sionary school in Connecticut. 

Samuel Kirkland. — It was Rev. Samuel Kirkland, 
a missionary, who planted the tree of education in 
Oneida county which still flourishes. He was the most 
prominent missionary to this region. After making a 
trip through the tribes he decided to locate permanently 
with the Oneidas because he considered them to be the 
noblest of the Six Nations. 

A generation before him another missionary had 
written of them: "There is no hope of making them 
better ; heathen they are and heathen they still must be." 

There is a peculiar romance in the life of Samuel 
Kirkland. Born on December i, 1 741. at Norwich, 
Conn., the son of a minister, he in 1762 entered the 
sophomore class of Nassau Hall. Princeton, N. J., 
receiving his degree in 1765. But before the degree 
had been conferred he had left college and taken up the 
arduous life of an Indian missionary. In the fall of 
1764 Mr. Kirkland, then but twenty-three years old, 
made a pilgrimage to the Iroquois country. .Arriving 
at the residence of Sir William Johnson, the Indian 
agent at Johnstown, Mr. Kirkland remained until 
January 17, 1765. Sir William favored the young 
man's mission, gave him a speech to deliver to the 



120 Oneida County 

Indians, and as was customary, sent with the message 
belts of wampum. Then with two Indian guides 
Kirkland set out on snowshoes for the country of the 
Seneca Indians in the western part of the state. 
Kirkland stopped at the principal village of the Oneidas 
and was hospitably received. They invited him to 
remain with them a year. He declined the invitation, 
continued his journey and after various incidents and 
hardships he arrived in the Seneca country twenty- 
three days after leaving the Indian agent's house. Mr. 
Kirkland remained with the Senecas until the following 
April, though one chief of the tribe bitterly opposed 
him and even sought the 3^oung man's death. In April 
there was a famine which necessitated Mr. Kirkland's 
return to Sir William Johnson's. He had been adopted 
into the family of the chief sachem of the Senecas and 
a son of this chief accompanied him back to that outpost 
of civilization. AA'hile crossing Oneida lake they were 
caught in a storm and their canoe was broken as they 
landed. Kirkland and his Indian brother after a stay 
of three weeks at Johnstown, returned to the Senecas, 
where Mr. Kirkland remained until May of the next 
year, 1766, when he went back to Connecticut accom- 
panied by two Indians. 

Ktrkland's Work Commenced. — During this visit, 
on June 19, 1766, the young man was ordained, and 
on the same day he received a general commission as 



Outline History. 121 

an Indian missionary from the Connecticut Board of 
Correspondents of a society in Sct)tland. 

About August I, 1766, Mr. Kirkland commenced his 
labors among the Oneidas. taking up his residence at 
Kanonwalohule (Oneida Castle), their principal 
village. He dug a cellar, felled trees and with the logs 
built him a house. For the ensuing forty years 
Kirkland's home was with the Oneidas and his influ- 
■ence over them was strong. He served both church 
and state with marked success. One of his first deeds 
was to procure the appointment of a party of chiefs 
who seized and destroyed all intoxicating liquors, and 
thereafter among the Oneidas intemperance was rare. 

\\'hile the good man's labors were crowned with 
success, his usefulness was nevertheless restricted by 
his p<»\erty. fnr he had been three years with the 
Oiieidas before he received pecuniary assistance trom 
abr(^afl. The summer of 1769 he spent in Connecticut 
and on September 15 of that year he there married 
Jerusha Bingham, a farmer's daughter. On their way 
back to the Oneida village Mrs. Kirkland stayed Avlth 
the family of Gen. Nicholas Herkimer while Mr. 
Kirkland went on to enlarge his cabin for her accom- 
modation. Tn December she took up her abode with 
her husband. But in the winter of 1772-3 Mrs. 
Kirkland went to Stockbridge, Mass.. and for many 
years thereafter Mr. Kirkland's family lived in Massa- 
chusetts while he labored among the Indians, rendering 



122 Oneida County 

to them and to his country \aluable services during- 
peace and war. Airs. Kirkland died in 1788. Mr. 
Kirkland married the second time and in 1 791 his 
family moved from New England to Oneida county. 

The Continental Congress commissioned Mr. Kirk- 
land a chaplain, in which capacity he served in Fort 
Stanwix and with General Sullivan's campaign of 
retribution against the Indians of Western New York 
in 1779. 

Kirkland's Great Service. — Mr. Kirkland's life 
was one of great activity, of hard labor, of suffering- 
and of danger. Though he had many warm friends 
among the Indians, he had also enemies among them 
and several times during his career the savages sought 
his death. Though he was but a poor laborer among 
the red men, the young Republic often sought and as 
often gained his services. Though he had triumphs, 
he also had terrible obstacles to overcome and there 
were periods when the clouds hung heavily over him. 
Though health sometimes failed, it seems that he never 
lost courage. One great service which he rendered to- 
the government saved the northern frontier from 
Indian ravages which scourged other colonies. In 
March, 1792, he succeeded in getting a delegation of 
forty Iroquois braves to go to Philadelphia, then the 
seat of the government, where peace between the 
Iroquois and the whites was agreed upon. 



Outline History. IJ3 

Such, in brief, was the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who 
with a zeal and determination far beyond his years 
carried the Gospel and education to the savages of this 
region. The book which he opened in the land of the 
Oneidas has never been closed. He taught not religion 
alone, but he sought in every way to elevate the children 
of the forest. 

Mr. Kirkland had been with the Oneidas eighteen 
years when Judge White, the first permanent settler, 
arrived in Whitestown (1784). 

The Schools. — The date of the opening of schools 
in each settlement is but little later than the date of the 
settlement itself, though the schools of the hamlets 
were small and poor in every sense. The common 
school had not then been established by the state. The 
modern city school house is with regard to health and. 
comfort the best structure that architects can build. 
The first school houses in Oneida county were in many 
instances but huts of bark and log. The men of the 
frontier, with a fine perception of the value of educa- 
tion, did not await the erection of saw mills that lumber 
might be obtained to construct a house of learning. 
The hardships endured by teacher and pupils were 
many. A strange adventure w'hich befell four children 
in the town of Annsville on June 6. 18 r6, may be cited. 
Two were boys aged nine and six, the remaining tw^o 
were sfirls of about the same asfe. The boys were 



124 Oneida County 

brothers and the girls were sisters. The boys resided 
three miles from the school house and the home of the 
girls was on the same road a mile nearer the school 
house. The weather had been very cold that June, but 
on the da\' mentioned the temperature l^ecame so low 
that the teacher at two o'clock in the afternoon dis- 
missed the pupils with instructions to go to the nearest 
house in the direction of their respective homes. When 
the four children reached the first residence they found 
it locked and the owners away. The school house had 
now been closed and the nearest inhabited dwelling, the 
home of the girls, was a mile and a quarter away. A 
storm had broken upon them and the ground was 
covered with snow to a depth of two inches. The 
youngest girl in the party had a pair of shoes but no 
stockings. Her companions were barefooted. The 
eldest and hardiest of the boys wore his father's coat. 
By successively carrying his companions — first the little 
brother with a foot in each pocket, and then the elder 
girl with a foot in each pocket of his father's coat, and 
by rubbing the bare feet at short intervals — he at length 
succeeded in bringing all within sight of the home of 
his little companions, and then aid came to them. 

Hamilton Academy. — Again taking up the thread 
of Rev. Mr. Kirkland's life, we find that in consequence 
of an injury- to one of his eyes received while riding 
through the woods in October. 17Q2, he was obliged 



Outline History. 125 

to go to Philadelphia and he took this occasion to 
further a plan which he had devised for a system of 
education in the Oneida country. Eight years had then 
elapsed since the first settlement ; the tide of immigra- 
tion had set in and Mr. Kirkland hoped to establish 
elementary schools for Indians and a high school for 
the whites and such of the natives as were worthy of 
higher education. Hence the location of the academy 
which eventually developed into Hamilton College, 
near the Line of Property, the htuindary between the 
white and the Indian lands. 

The Name Hamilton. — On this trip Mr. Kirkland 
laid his plans before many, including the regents of the 
state, the governor and Alexander Hamilton — after 
whom the school was named — and President George 
\\'ashington. The latter ''expressed a warm interest in 
the institution." So it came about that in the following 
year (January 31, 1793) the Hamilton Oneida 
Academy was incorporated and Mr. Kirkland gave 
generously to it of lands which had been cojointly 
deeded to him by the Indians and the state. He so con- 
ditioned his gift that one lot of twelve acres should not 
be transferred. 

Corner Stone Laid. — In 1794 Baron Steuben, 
escorted by Capt. George \\'. Kirkland and his troop of 
Clinton Light Horse, rode up the hill west of Clinton 
village and with ceremonv laid the corner stone for a 



126 Oneida County 

wooden building for the academy. There were reverses 
and delays, but the academy was finally opened and 
continued until the regents granted a charter to 
Hamilton College (May 26, 1812). 

Rev. Mr. Kirkland died February 28, 1808. His 
remains rest in the college cemetery at Clinton. Beside 
him was buried Skenandoa, a famous Oneida chieftain 
who accepted Christianity and who died May 11, 1816. 

Town Schools. — The establishment of schools in a 
settlement marks a new epoch. The development of 
the settlement may be suggested by these dates giving 
the establishment of schools in a number of the older 
towns: WMiitesboro, 1785-6; Lairdsville (Westmore- 
land). 1792: Rome, 1795-96; Lee, 1796-97; Utica, 
prior to 1797; Augusta, 1798; Vernon, 1798; Trenton, 
1802; Annsville, 1812; Boonville, 1802; Augusta 
Center, 1797; Bridgewater, 1797; Camden, 1803; 
Marcy, about 1800; McConnellsville (Vienna), 1803-4; 
Westernville, about 1800; Manchester (Kirkland), 
1817. 

The earliest schools were "gotten up," sometimes by 
a teacher looking for occupation, at other times by 
parents seeking to provide means of education for the 
children. The development of the common school 
system into the present perfected machine was slow, 
and at various stages it encountered opposition from 
manv who believed that the steps taken would impair 



Outline History. 127 

tlie work of education. It is interesting to note herein 
that the cornerstone of the first high school antedates 
the erection of Oneida county by about four years and 
that the college came soon after the formation of the 
county. 

Clinton Gr.ammar School. — The formation of 
this school was agitated in 18 13, a year after the 
Hamilton Oneida Acadeni\- had l)een merged into a 
college, but it was not until 18 15 that a company able 
tp establish a school was formed. The school was con- 
tinued with several changes until 1890, when it was 
closed. 

Dwight's Ri'RAL High School, Clinton. — This 
was opened in May, 1858, by Rev. Benjamin W. 
Dwight. Tn Ai)ril, 1865. the buildings situated at the 
corner of Elm and Factory streets were burned. 

Classical School. — Between the closing of the 
Hamilton Oneida Academy and the opening of 
Hamilton College a classical school was opened at 
Clinton with Rev. Comfort Williams and Moses Bristol 
as teachers. A female department was instituted about 
1817. 

The Clinton Liberal Institute. — The male 
department of this school was opened at Clinton 
November 7. 183 1 : female department. November 21, 
183 1. The school was removed to Fort Plain in i87g. 

Houghton Seminary. Clinton. — Home Cottage 



128 Oneida County 

Seminary was established by Miss Louise M. Barker in 
1854 and continued until 1861, when it was purchased 
by Dr. J. G. Gallup, who changed the name to 
Houghton Seminary. In 1880 the Seminary passed 
into the hands of A. G. Benedict, A. M. It has since 
been discontinued. 

Cottage Seminary, Clinton. — Was opened in 
1861 by Miss Louisa M. Barker. At her death Miss 
Annie Chipman conducted the seminary and later Rev. 
Chester W. Hawley became the principal. This is now 
conducted by J. B. Wheeler as a private school for boys. 

The Young Ladies' Domestic Seminary, Clin- 
ton. — The seminary was established in 1832 by Rev. 
Hirmon H. Kellogg and was conducted by him until 
1841. when he accepted the presidency of Knox 
College. Illinois. Mr. Kellogg then sold the seminary 
to an. association of Free Will Baptists, who on a plan 
of their own continued it for three years and then 
moved to more commodious quarters at Whitesboro. 
A private school followed and then the institution was 
closed. Mr. Kellogg returned to Clinton and endeav- 
ored to revive the school, but in 1850 he permanently 
abandoned it. 

Whitestown Seminary. — Under the auspices of 
the Oneida Presbytery, the Oneida Academy, after- 
ward called the Oneida Institute, was founded at 
Whitestown in 1827. The students were required to 
do farm labor. For about a decade it prospered until 



Outline History. 129 

Rev. Beriah Green, who became president about 1834, 
denounced the Oneida Presbytery as guilty of the 
crime of sla\c hokhno-. He \vith(h"e\v from the Pres- 
bytery and formed a new Congregational church at 
W'hitesboro and thus impaired the patronage which the 
Institute had enjoyed. But the Free Will Baptist Asso- 
ciation at this time, desiring more commodious quar- 
ters, moved from Clinton to the Institute buildings at 
A\'hitesboro in 1844, and in 1845 i^ ^^^^ chartered by 
the regents as the VVhitestown Seminary. For many 
years it was a prosperous institution. It was closed 
about t\\cnt}--Jive years ago. 

Augusta Academy. — Was founded in 1834 and 
incorporated in 1840. The rear wall of the building 
was a straight line, the remaining portion of the 
enclosure was a semicircle variously divided. From a 
seat at the center the teacher could at a glance com- 
mand a view of all students. 

HoBART Hall Academy. — This school was incor- 
porated in Holland Patent in 1839 and continued for a 
number of years and at length gave way to the develop- 
ment of the general school system. 

The Rome Academy. — Was founded in 1835: 
incorporated by the regents March 15. 1849. 

The Bridgewater Academy. — Established in 1826 
and discontinued in 1839. 

Bridgewater Female Seminary. — Was founded. 
in 1847. 



130 Oneida County 

The Utica Free Academy. — Was incorporated 
March 28, 18 14. as the "Utica Academy." The village 
then had a population of 1,700. In the summer of 
18 1 8 the building, a two-story brick edifice, was com- 
pleted on Chancellor Square, then a "boggy plain.'' 
The school house also served as a court house. May 
13, 1865, the building was burned. Then the grounds 
were enlarged by the piuxhase of a lot at the corner of 
Bleecker and Academy streets and a new building w^as 
completed in the fall of 1867. In this the academy was 
continued until September 11, 1899, when the present 
academy building was opened on Kemble and Elm 
streets. This latter building was nearing completion 
when, on April 5. 1898, it was destroyed by fire. 
Again, in the spring of 1908, it was burned, and agam 
rebuilt. On the removal of the academy to Kemble 
street, the old edifice facing Chancellor Square was 
remodeled for the reception of lower grades and the 
name was changed to Bleecker School. 

The Utica Female Academy. — This school was 
chartered April 28, 1837: March 2/, 1865, the academy 
was burned and the present edifice on Washingtt^n 
street was then erected. The school has passed through 
many changes, and at times was one of the principal 
schools for the education of girls in the state. The 
building was sold in 1908 to the "N^oung Men's Chris- 
tian Association. 



Outline History. 131 

\Ve have endeavored in the foregoing to do nothing 
more than to indicate in a general way the development 
of the educational system of the region by noting the 
establishment of the early institutions, especially those 
early academies out of which many young men have 
gone with a mental equipment which has enabled them 
to attain places of first honor. The achievements of 
the sons and daughters of these institutions, especially 
at Clinton and W'hitesboro. could be rec(^rded only in 
^•olumes. 



THE WAR OF 1812. 



State Militia Called Out — Oneida County Men 
Stationed at Sacket's Harbor — Deserters- 
Drummed Out of Town. 



o 



LIVER COLLINS of New Hartford, a man 
prominent in civil and military affairs, held a 
commission as brigadier general when the war 
of 1812 broke out. During the war he called out the 
militia of Oneida, Herkimer, Jefferson and Lewis 
counties en masse, a force of 2,900, of which number 
2,500 were from Oneida and Herkimer counties. \\"ith 
this force he proceeded to Sacket's Harbor and there 
assisted in guarding the stores at that point. But the 
quarters were uncomfortable, disease broke out and 
many of the soldiers deserted. After his return General 
Collins held a court martial in L^tica for the trial of 
these deserters. The sentence of those convicted was 
that their back pay be stopped and that with their coats 
turned inside out they be "drummed out of camp" as 
far as Deerfield Corners. It was said that the citizens 
of Utica would not allow the sentence of the court to 
be carried out. General Collins obtained music and a 
corporal's guard from a company of regulars then 
stationed in the citv. A crowd assembled, but when 



Outline History. 133 

the guard was ordered to load their rifles the crowd 
offered no interference and the sentences were exe- 
cuted. 

During the war a company of about sixty volun- 
teered in Utica and it was afterward attached to the 
134th Regiment. A draft was also held in Utica. 
Troops were constantly passing through the valley — 
the traditional war trail of the nations. Many depre- 
dations were committed by the warriors of that day as 
they bivouacked in and about Utica. 

On November 3, 1814, Commodore Perry was a 
guest in Utica and a public dinner was given in his 
honor. 



THE CIVIL WAR. 

County Performed Its Part Nobly — Sent Five 
Regiments and Many Parts of Companies into 
Battle — The Drafts. 



c 



ENTRAL NEW YORK watched the gathering- 
of the war cloud which broke in 1861. Before 
the conflict began, its men in pubHc meetings 
had voiced their patriotism, and a quarter of a century 
before the war the feehng of the people was shown 
over the arrest in Utica of a fugitive slave. His owner 
traced him to Utica, caused his arrest and had him 
arraigned before a United States commissioner. An 
advocate appeared in behalf of the slave and argued all 
day, with the exception of a recess for dinner. The 
argument was unfinished at evening and an adjourn- 
ment was taken for supper. The slave remained in 
custody in the commissioner's office during the recess. 
Suddenly a mob descended on the office, bore the slave 
away, and, it is supposed, assisted him in escaping to 
Canada. 

The Call for Troops. — When the conflict was on 
and the call of Lincoln came for volunteers there was 
neither tardiness nor hesitancy in the answer. On 
April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter was fired upon. The first 
call for volunteers was marie on April 15th. and on 



Outline History. 135 

Mav 17th the call was answered in this connty by a 
regiment, and on May 21st a second regiment was 
mustered into service. 

Five Regiments. — Oneida county for the civil war 
furnished five regiments as follows : 

Fourteenth New York Volunteer Regiment (the 
First Oneida), Col. James McOuade; mustered in May 
17. 1861, for two years; rendezvous at Albany. 

Twenty-sixth New York Volunteer Regiment 
(Second Oneida), Col. WiUiam H. Christian; mus- 
tered in May 21st. 1861, for two years; rendez\(^us at 
Elmira. 

Ninety-seventh New York Volunteer Regiment 
(Third Oneida). Col. Charles Wheelock ; mustered in 
February 18. 1862. for three years; rendezvous at 
Boonville. 

(^ne Hundred and Seventeenth New York Volunteer 
Regiment (Fourth Oneida), Col. William R. Pease; 
mustered in August 8 to 16, 1862, for three years; 
rendezvous at Rome. 

One Hundred and Forty-Sixth New York Volunteer 
Regiment (Fifth Oneida), Col. Kenner Garrard; mus- 
tered in October 10. 1862. for three years; rendezvous 
at Rome. 

Besides these regiments the county furnislied during 
the war about a score of companies and ])arts of com- 
panies which were distributed among tlie 47tli. 50th, 



136 Oneida County 

57th, 68th, 8 1st, 164th and 19201 regiments of infantry 
and the 2d iVrtillery, Bates' Battery, 14th Artillery and 
24th Artillery. 

It has been said of the 2d Heavy Artillery that 
though not designated as an Oneida connty regiment 
it probably contained more Oneida county men than 
any regiment known as an Oneida regiment. 

Recruiting officers were numerous. The whole 
number of Oneida county men who enlisted during the 
war has been placed at 10,000. The population of the 
county in i860 was 101.626. According to this 
estimate about half the voters of the county enlisted. 
Oneida county was represented in all the great battles 
of the war. Many of its men won commissions and 
advances in rank for bravery, and medals of honor for 
conspicuous acts of gallantry have been given by Con- 
gress to several of its sons. 

Bounties. — As the war advanced and people came 
to a keener realization of its hardships and its perils, 
the necessities of the hour prompted the holding of a 
public meeting in Utica on July 14. 1862, after a call 
for more troops had been issued. Subscriptions were 
made for a fund for the payment of bounties. A month 
later the supervisors authorized the raising of money 
whereby a bounty of $50 was paid to each volunteer 
and the men of the third regiment (the 97th) received 
this. In succeeding years the bounties were increased 
until '65, when the board of supervisors authorized the 



Ouiline History. 137 

payment of a bounty of $300 to men who enlisted for 
one year, $500 for two years, and $700 for three years. 
During the war there were also state and federal 
bounties. 

The Draft. — Once the conscription, or draft, was 
used to fill deficiencies in the quotas of towns. It was 
commenced in Utica on August 25, 1863, in Mechanic's 
Hall at the corner of Liberty and Hotel streets. One 
hundred and forty-two soldiers were sent to the city to 
preserve order on this occasion. Prominent citizens 
and officials were present and a crowd stood outside in 
the drizzling rain. The box from which the names 
were taken was placed in an open window that those 
without might witness the proceedings, and. to avoid 
any charge of chicanery, a blind man drew forth the 
slips bearing the names. Wild scenes attended the con- 
scription, but there was no violence and on the evening 
following the drawing of the names, the drafted men 
paraded the streets of Utica. 

The return of the regiments from the war was in 
each case properly observed with public receptions and 
celebrations. 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 



This County Well Represented in the Mobil- 
izing Force, in Cuba and the Philippines. 



AN Oneida county man was among those who 
perished in the destruction of the Maine in the 
harbor of Havana. When, on April 23, 1898, 
the President issued a call for 125,000 volunteers for 
two years there was such a ready response that it was 
found that there was "not enough of the war to go 
around," for the quota for New York was only about 
12,000. A large percentage of the members of the 
28th and 44th Separate Companies of the National 
Guard, State of New York, located in Utica. volun- 
teered. There were more than enough other applicants 
to fill the vacant places in the ranks. The 44th Separate 
Company left Utica May 2, 1898, and became Com- 
pany E of the 1st N. Y. Provisional Regiment. This 
company was successively stationed at Hempstead 
Plains on Long Island, at Fort Hamilton in New York 
Harbor, and at Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands. It 
returned in December of the same year. 

On the second call for troops, 75,000 for two years, 
New York's quota was about 8,000 and enlistments 
were open to all. A large percentage of the member- 
ship of two companies was raised in Oneida county. 



Outline History. 139 

These were Company G of the 2030! Regiment, mus- 
tered in at Syracuse July 19, 1898, and which was 
successively located at Hempstead Plains, L. I., near 
Harrisburg, Pa., in the Conewago valley, and at Green- 
ville. S. C. : and Company K of the 202d Regiment, 
mustered in at Buffalo in July and which was succes- 
sively located at Hempstead Plains, near Harrisburg, 
Pa., Savannah. Ga.. and in Cuba. The 203d was the 
first body of United States soldiers to enter Havana. 

Numerous individuals enlisted for army and na^•y 
service and were assigned to many different organiza- 
tions. The 9th Regiment, regulars, which did valiant 
service in Cuba, the Philippines and China, had many 
Oneida county men in its ranks. The 26th Regiment 
of volunteers, which saw service in the Philippines, had 
a large quota of Oneida county men. 

The return of the soldiers was celebrated with ban- 
quets of an imposing character. 

May 24. 1899, the Oneida County War Committee 
presented bronze medals to about 350. Capt. Charles 
S. Sigsbee. who commanded the Maine, received each 
of the volunteers who was present, and in his address 
he told the story of the destruction of his vessel in the 
harbor of Havana. 

In the Boxer uprising in China. Oneida cnunt}- men 
in the 9th Regiment of the regular army marched with 
it to Pekin and participated in all the battles. And in 
this the latest war. as in the others, Oneida county men 
won recognition for valiant service. 



INDUSTRIAL CENTERS. 



The Cities of Utica and Rome — Some Mention of 
Their Chief Products — A Glance at Their 
Condition and Progress. 

THERE is briefly set forth in this smah voknne 
some of the most essential facts connected with 
the history and development of Oneida County, 
leaving much unsaid, of course, that might be of inter- 
est to the reader, but possibly giving enough to stimu- 
late more extended study. It seems proper, therefore, 
in a closing chapter to make some reference to the two 
cities of the county — Utica and Rome — and to give 
some account of the industries centered within their 
borders. 

Less than fifteen miles apart, these two cities form 
important industrial centers, linked together with a 
half-hour trolley service, the frequent communication 
over the Central-Hudson railroad, and by the canal. 
However, when one pauses to study these cities, he 
discovers that their industries bear little resemblance. 
for while Utica is one of the great cotton manufac- 
turing centers of the whole country, Rome gives small 
attention to fabrics and devotes its energies to the 
manufacture of products in which copper, brass, iron 
and steel enter very largely. 



Outline Hislory. 141 

Facts Concerning L'tica. — This city has about 
72.000 population. It is provided with all the acces- 
sories of a modern city in abundance. Churches, 
schools, public library, hospitals, charitable institutions, 
newspapers, banks, telephone and telegraph systems, 
fire and police protection, clubs for men and women, 
theatres, mercantile establishments — are all to be found 
in liberal supply. Also, it is now on the eve of better 
shipping- facilities, as a new passenger station is soon 
to be constructed, and with it \\ill l)e installed an 
extensi\e freight yard and the necessary freight houses. 

Utica is the gateway to the Adirondacks, and the 
railroads that furnish the only means of reaching most 
of the large towns in Xorthern New York have their 
initial in this cit}'. T() the stnith there are two lines of 
steam railroad and trolie\' connections that encompass 
Otsego county as far as Oneonta. There is also half- 
hourly trolley service eastward as far as T.ittle Falls 
and westward to Syracuse. 

l'tica is one of the best paved cities in the L'nited 
States. It has more asphalt pa\ing than any city of 
its size on the continent. The paxements in all business 
sections are swept daily and patrolled hourly ; residence 
sections are swept twice each week and patrolled 
hourly. 

Witliin the city are several small parks, and on the 
southern border of the city, a noble tract of land, about 
three hundred acres in extent, has been presented to 



14- Oneida Coinily 

the city by Thomas R. Proctor, and named Roscoe 
Conkhng park. 

The new Oneida County Building, which cost, includ- 
ing the site. $920,000, was completed and first occupied 
in the summer of 1908. Many other buildings, devoted 
to public uses and private enterprise, are notable for 
their beauty and utility, and its streets are wide and 
well shaded. 

Manufactures. — The best figures obtainable con- 
cerning the manufactures of Utica are those to be found 
in the industrial census taken in 1905, and even this is 
so deficient as to be regarded as quite unreliable, while 
so rapid has been the development in some of the prin- 
cipal industries that the statistics there given are now 
quite out of date. 

The total capital invested in the 333 industries then 
canvassed was $21,184,033, while the wages and sal- 
aries annually paid to about eleven thousand individuals 
was given as $5,561,444. The cost of materials used 
in manufacture was nearly thirteen million dollars, and 
the value of the finished product w^as placed at nearly 
twenty-three million dollars annually. 

It is the opinion of well-informed men engaged in 
manufacturing in Utica that the total capital invested 
in industries at the present time will not fall far short 
of thirty millions of dollars; and the value of the 
output yearly, under normal conditions, will rise from 



Outline History. 143 

a million and a half to two millions above the capital 
invested. 

Including in these totals the immediate suburban 
villages — those within the five-cent fare trolley limit — 
and these figures would be largely increased. 

Chief Products. — Utica is in particular a center 
for the manufacture of knit-goods, cotton fabrics, men's 
clothing, caps, iron pipe, and heating apparatus ; also, 
in this city is located one of the largest woolen cloth 
manufactories of the state. 

The cotton industry leads all others, and is growing 
rapidly. L'tica is now a center of the knit goods indus- 
try (both cotton and wool), and its products in this 
line are shipped to every part of the globe. The largest 
establishment in the world devoted to the production 
of knit underwear is here located, while at least a half 
dozen others engaged in the same industry may truth- 
fully lay claim to having few superiors. More than a 
score of knitting mills are in operation, and their 
number and strength is increasing rapidly. 

Cotton yarns and cloths, sheets, pillow cases, hosiery, 
and other products of the spinning, weaving and 
knitting mills, swell the textile industry to large pro- 
portions. 

Some of the largest of the men's clothing manufac- 
tories have extensive trade and their products go from 
coast to coast 



144 Oneida County 

As a center for the manufacture of Scotch caps, 
Utica has long been noted. 

Upwards of three milhon dollars are invested in the 
manufacture of hot air furnaces and other heating- 
apparatus, steam fittings and the foundry and machine 
shop products. The various patterns of Utica furnaces 
are used all over this country, and the output each year 
is a ver}^ large one. 

The manufacture of cast iron pipe is also a consid- 
erable industry, while the output of iron and brass 
bedsteads and spring beds is of such \'olume as to 
entitle Utica to first place in the list of cities in which 
this industry is carried on. 

Diversified Industries. — The list of Utica indus- 
tries well nigh exhausts the catalogue of marketable 
products. Among them, the following may be men- 
tioned as prominent in the city's industrial life: 

Lumber products of wide variety, including sash, 
doors and bhnds ; electrical machinery^ apparatus and 
supplies : malt liquors ; carriages and wagons ; agricul- 
tural implements; marble and stone work and artificial 
stone ; wall plaster, tile and brick : cigars and chewing 
and smoking tobacco ; chemical fire extinguishers : 
sporting goods ; rifles : trunks ; brass castings and fin- 
ishing ; blank book making : boxes ; uniforms and 
regalias; awnings, tents and banners; bicycles; burial 
cases ; stained glass ; organs and pianos ; paints and 
varnishes ; patent medicines ; roofing materials ; fertili- 



Outline History. 145 

zers: meat products; cofl'ee and spice roasting and 
g-rindino-; dairy products; adhesives; knitting mill 
machinery: belting and mill supplies; engines and 
boilers; structural and ornamental iron; lead pipe; 
macaroni ; flavoring extracts ; mineral and soda waters ; 
mattresses. 

Rome. 

The city of Rome has upwards of 17,000 inhabitants 
and is one of the most prosperous of the smaller cities 
of the state. One of its characteristics is the remark- 
able unanimity displayed by its business and profes- 
sional men in the accomplishment of any object for 
the advancement of their city. It has wide streets, 
well shaded, and within the last few years has taken 
up the paving problem with some success. 

Rome is served by the Central-Hudson railroad, both 
main line and a northern branch which extends to all 
the northern counties via W'atertown. A branch of 
the Ontario &- Western railroad intersects the Utica 
division of that road at Clinton. The Rome & North- 
ern railroad is projected, and if built will extend 
twenty-five miles northward to a heavily-timbered tract 
in T.ewis county. This city is the southern terminal of 
the Black River canal ; the Erie canal passes through 
the city and the Utica & Mohawk Valley electric line 
srives the citv half-hourlv service to the east. 



146 Oneida County 

Municipal Water System. — Rome is now 
engaged in the construction of a system of water supply 
that will cost about a half million dollars. The city 
has secured the water rights on Fish creek, a noble 
stream that finds outlet in Oneida lake, and at a point 
about fifteen miles northwest from the city a concrete 
dam is being created to form a reservoir. From the 
dam a tunnel that will be something over a mile long 
will pierce the high bluff and table lands bordering the 
stream. From the mouth of the tunnel a thirty-six 
inch concrete conduit-line, seven miles long, will reach 
out toward the city, and then will follow for five miles 
a twenty-seven inch iron pipe line. The supply that 
will be furnished through this system will be fully ten 
millions of gallons daily. The contracts have been let 
for the construction of the dam, gate house, conduit 
line, pipe, etc., and the work was commenced in the 
summer of 1908. \Mien completed, the city will have 
an abundant supply of pure water, and should the 
future growth of the city demand it. the supply can be 
increased to any desired volume. 

Great Copper Industry. — Rome is one of the 
largest copper manufacturing cities in the country. Its 
annual consumption of raw copper is about fifty 
million pounds. There are not half a dozen places in 
the United States that handle such a large quantity of 
copper for manufacturing purposes. 



Outline History. 147 

Eight large firms, employing no less than 2,517 
persons, are engaged mainly in the manufacture of 
copper and brass. The product is varied and interest- 
ing. Among the articles made are copper and brass 
rods, nails and tacks ; copper and brass and their alloys 
in sheets, bars and tubes ; print rolls ; drawn copper 
bars, commutator bars, brazed tubes, yellow metal ; 
seamless copper and brass tubes ; nickel-plated tea and 
coffee pots, wash boilers ; bedstead trimmings ; gas 
fixtures ; chains ; cuspidors ; specialties ; coolers ; auto- 
m(»bile radiators: bare and covered wire of all kinds; 
lamp cords ; magnet cords ; insulated w'ire ; copper and 
brass signs. Two-thirds of all the copper kettles made 
in America arc turned out by the Rome Manufacturing 
Company. 

Wide V.\riety. — Among other industries of im- 
portance in Rome are those engaged in the manufacture 
of automobile parts : iron and brass beds ; gas engines ; 
power sprayers : knit underwear ; locomotives : motors ; 
boilers ; merchant bar iron ; patented machinery for the 
manufacture of tin cans : tin cans of all sizes : wagons 
and wagon gears ; many articles in wood, such as sash, 
doors, pumps, windmills, fishpoles, boxes, etc. ; harness 
and harness specialties ; brick : textile and laundry soap ; 
men's hats: American, sweitzer and limburger cheese; 
fertilizers : bottled and charged waters. 

The canning industry at Rome is a very extensive 



148 Oneida County 

one and employs about 2,600 people during the season 
and a large force the year through. Nearly all varieties 
of vegetables and fruits are preserved. 

The number employed in the various industries at 
Rome is not far from eight thousand persons, when 
all are in operation. This is quite remarkable for a 
city with no larger population, and it plainly demon- 
strates that it is a community of great activity and 
steady progress. 

As A Place of Residence. — Rome is provided with 
all those accessories that make life in small cities 
pleasant. Schools, churches, clubs, fraternal organiza- 
tions and many social and educational helps are to be 
found in necessary abundance. A spirit of deep loyalty 
appears to pervade the city, that may have been born 
from the facts that it is built upon the site of "the fort 
that never surrendered," and there is a friendliness and 
liberality toward industries and enterprises that is not 
often met in the East. 



H151 74 



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